The newsboys' lodging-house or The confessions of William James

"William James, psychologist and philosopher, one of the founding fathers of modern American thought, suffered a devastating mental collapse when he was thirty years old. Obsessing about evil's existence in a godly world, he found himself unable to work or sleep, and contemplated suicide. Months later, he emerged from his isolation with a surer sense of self and a new clarity of purpose. No one knows what happened in the interim as forty-two pages had been cut out of his diary. In this historical novel, Jon Boorstin imagines James's adventures during those missing months.". "Inspired by a chance encounter with Horatio Alger, James goes incognito to New York City to search for the key to human nature in the struggles of the young street urchins Alger wrote about. Once there, James finds himself confronting the harsh realities of a gritty, unforgiving city coming into its own as he battles to save a nine-year-old seduced by the darker side of street life. James, the brilliant theorizer, is forced to test his abstract speculations in the crucible of 1870s New York - shaping the very ideas that would later so profoundly influence American thought."--BOOK JACKET.