James family biography

By Judith Maas, Library Assistant

Each month the Reader Services department at the MHS offers a new display of thematically related books in the library’s reference room.

Prior to our closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I had been exploring our collection of materials on the James family for a book display and found a wide assortment of items, both by and about family members. To keep the library’s tradition going, I decided to bring my planned display online, along with brief descriptions of each book.

James family biography

I hope these selections inspire some enjoyable late summer and early autumn reading!

In a New York Times interview (Aug. 7, 1991), Yale scholar Lewis states that he had first intended to create a television series portraying the lives of several generations of a great American family.

That idea evolved into this epic family biography, ten years in the making. The story begins in 1789, when William James, the son of a