William Lyon Phelps Foundation

Welcome to the

William Lyon Phelps Foundation

Web Site

Dedicated to the writing, values, life, and times of William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943), Lampson Professor of English literature at Yale University, distinguished lecturer, author, critic and ordained minister, and to Huron City, location of Professor Phelps Summer residence preserved in its original 19th Century setting within the Huron City Museum

Contents

Transcription Archive of
Billy Phelps Essays & Books

Christ or Caesar

Pure Gold of Nineteenth Century Literature

A Room Without a Veiw

Birds and Statesmen

Russia Before the Revolution

The Forsyte Saga

London As Summer Resort

What the Man Will Wear

A Private Library All Your Own

The Greatest Common Divisor

The Great American Game

Going Abroad the First Time

Spiritual Healing

The Importance of the Earth

Resolutions When I Come to be Old

English and American Humor

A Pair of Socks

Ancient Football

An Inspiring Cemetery

One Day at a Time

City and Country

Profession and Practice

The Poetry of Walt Whitman

A Visible Church

Phelps Retired Life

Income Tax 1912

... and from Yale

Yale class of 1822 (57MB pdf)

Phelps Preface to the Autobiography (1939):

"The lack of order, coherence, symmetry in this book (web site) is owing neither to accident nor to laziness; it is the way I chose to write it. The pleasure of good conversation (surfing) would be destroyed if conversation were 'organized'- forced to proceed in a definite direction, instead of being brittle, broken by interruptions... When I have finished reading the proofs, I hope that some persons may read the book.

As for me, I am afraid to think what I have done; Look on't again I dare not."

(Editor)