" . . . a first-rate edition, which supersedes all other portable Peirces. . . . all the Peirce most people will ever need." —Louis Menand, The New York Review of Books

"The Monist essays are included in the first volume of the compact and welcome Essential Peirce; they are by Peirce's standards quite accessible and splendid in their cosmic scope and assertiveness." —London Review of Books

A convenient two-volume reader's edition makes accessible to students and scholars the most important philosophical papers of the brilliant American thinker Charles Sanders Peirce. This first volume presents twenty-five key texts from the first quarter century of his writing, with a clear introduction and informative headnotes. Volume 2 will highlight the development of Peirce's system of signs and his mature pragmatism.