Yankee from Olympus : Justice Holmes and his family / Catherine Drinker Bowen.

"An Atlantic monthly press book."

"Published April 1944, reprinted April 1944 (three times)"

Includes bibliographical references (pages [433]-451) and index.

Part I. Abiel and his son Oliver, 1800-1841 -- Part II. Oliver Wendell Homes, Junior, 1841-1861 -- Part III. The soldier, 1861-1864 -- Part IV. The lawyer, 1866-1882 -- Part V. Judge in Massachusetts, 1882-1902 -- Part VI. Washington, 1902-1935.

"Yankee from Olympus: Justice Holmes and His Family provides an excellent introduction to a lengthy period of American history, from the years preceding the Civil War to the Great Depression and New Deal of the 1930’s. Author Catherine Drinker Bowen extends her study even beyond Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s long life span, however, since she explains that his roots in New England played an important role in the development of his character. Thus she devotes part 1 (of six parts) of the book to Holmes’s father and grandfather. By doing so, she establishes the world into which Holmes was born—the Cambridge and Boston of the nineteenth century, where family ties, religious beliefs, and intellectual development were emphasized. There is much discussion of Holmes’s father in later chapters as well, since he lived until 1894, when his son was fifty-three years old. The book focuses on Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., beginning in part 2, a discussion of the young Holmes, his schooling at Harvard University, and his reaction to the onset of the Civil War. In part 3, readers meet Holmes as a soldier. He enlisted for three years at the beginning of the Civil War; by the time he left the army in 1864, he had been wounded three times, shot in the chest, neck, and leg. It is little wonder that he chose studies at Harvard Law School over reenlistment. As a lawyer, Holmes was more interested in writing and theorizing about legal philosophy than in developing a private practice. This led ultimately to the publication of his landmark work The Common Law, published in 1881. This was the first study of the law in which an author traced the development of legal opinions through social and historical events rather than only through precedents of earlier court cases. “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience,” Holmes wrote. As Bowen demonstrates in part 4, the publication of the book brought with it international recognition, an invitation to lecture at Harvard, and, shortly thereafter, an appointment to the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The last two sections of the book consider Holmes as a justice, first on the Massachusetts court until 1902, then on the United States Supreme Court. Bowen considers a few of the most important cases encountered by Holmes but does not neglect his personal relationships with other members of the courts, with U.S. presidents, and with his own wife, Fanny Dixwell Holmes, whom he married in 1872. These later chapters especially are informed by many of Holmes’s professional and personal associates, whom Bowen interviewed. A few notes and some informative material on sources are found at the end of the book." -- from the internet.