If you have been following the progress of the Critical Edition of Whitehead, you may already know that we have been making great progress in editing the two volumes of Whitehead’s Essays and Articles—that is, all essays or articles that were either never collected into books, or that only appeared in the looser collections The Organisation of Thought (1917), Aims of Education (1929), and Essays in Science and Philosophy (1947).

There are 78 total essays and articles between the two volumes, ranging in publication date from 1886 to 1942. Many of these are difficult to access today, and four have never been published at all. We are excited to get these critically edited volumes into the hands of Whitehead scholars, as we expect that they will stimulate some great new research.

However, there is one hurdle that we need your help to clear: costs for reproduction rights. Although all of Whitehead’s writings from 1927 and earlier are now in the public domain, he was publishing articles as late as 1942. We have now contacted all rights-holders of these later articles, and some publishers have demanded large fees for permission to reproduce them.

We don’t want to wait fifteen years for the last of this material to enter the public domain before publishing these volumes. They are too important to put off for that long. We are appealing to you to help pay these rights costs, so that we can publish these volumes in a timely fashion, rather than waiting over a decade.

The total actual cost for all reproduction rights needed to publish the volume is $3,671. Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. 100% of donations will go to help publish the Critical Edition of Whitehead. You can click here to donate.