Publication and Content

This early work by William Lyon Phelps was originally published in 1927 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. Happiness is an essay about the true definition of happiness and where it is to be found.

Author Biography

William Lyon Phelps was born on 2nd January 1865, in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Phelps earned a B.A. in 1887, writing his thesis on the Idealism of George Berkeley. He then gained an M.A. in 1891 from Yale and his PhD from Harvard in the same year.

During his time at Yale, he offered a course in modern novels which brought the university considerable attention both nationally and internationally. Phelps published many essays on modern and European literature, including titles such as Essays on Modern Novelists (1910), Some Makers of American Literature (1923), and As I Like it (1923).