The target audience for these volumes are those interested in the primary source content, as well as the history and thought of elite Victorian thinkers. The introduction, commentary, apparatus, and indices make these high-level essays more accessible. The footnotes are thorough and helpful when placing the source material within its proper historical context [T]his edition is essential for those interested in the broad range of topics discussed, as well as the history of the discussion and the persons involved in the Metaphysical Society.

Elizabeth H. Farnsworth, Newman Studies Journal

In the introduction the three editors contend that the Metaphysical Society and what it produced deserves to be given its rightful place in the Victorian history of ideas (p. 25). Their critical edition of the societys papers fulfills that objective magnificently. It is a veritable treasure trove of nineteenthcentury intellectual history that ought to be on the shelves of every serious research library.

Gowan Dawson, The British Journal for the History of Science

In sum, the publication of these three volumes opens up a whole new fertile field for scholarly investigation.Overall the editors have done a marvellously meticulous job in preparing these three substantial volumes of papers for publication and in consequence have rendered a great service to scholarship, particularly to the history of ideas of the mid-Victorian period. Scholars of nineteenth-century Victorian thought owe them a real debt of gratitude for their extensive critical labours. s