W. J. Mander was educated at University College London and Corpus Christi College Oxford. After holding a Junior Research Fellowship at St Anne's College, he became a Fellow of Harris Manchester College. Although he is also interested in Early Modern Philosophy, his main area of research is in Nineteenth Century British Philosophy.

This volume contains thirty new essays by leading experts on British philosophy in the nineteenth century, and provides a comprehensive and unrivalled resource for advanced students and scholars. As well as the most celebrated figures, such as Mill, Spencer, Sidgwick, and Bradley, the Handbook discusses many other less well-known names and debates from the period, such as Whewell, Shadworth Hodgson, and Martineau.
The Handbook contains six parts: Part I examines logic and scientific method from Whately through to the advent of modern formal logic; Part II discusses some of the century's most famous metaphysical systems such as those of the Scottish Common Sense school, J. F. Ferrier and F. H. Bradley; Part III covers science and philosophy, paying particular attention to positivism and the impact of Darwin's evolutionary theory; Part IV explores ethical, social, and political thought, including the lesser known themes of feminism and British Socialism; Part V concerns religious philosophy; and Part VI examines the changes which took place in the practice of philosophy itself during the nineteenth-century. Prefaced by an introductory article which contextualises and relates the various themes and controversies of the century, each chapter provides an overview of the topic under consideration and surveys of the state of current research, while at the same time offering new ideas and suggestions for future interpretation.