Yankee From Olympus - Justice Holmes And His Family [Paperback]

Catherine Drinker Bowen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2007

YANKEE FROM OLYMPUS udtice 7 9o med ana ami CATHERINE DRINKER BOWEN AN ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOOK LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY BOSTON 1944 Justice Holmes an etching by Sally Tat For my husband CAPTAIN T. McKEAN DOWNS, M. C. U. S. N. R, Here is a Yankee, strayed from Olympus. From the essay on Justice Holmes by Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, in Fire under the Andes ACKNOWLEDGMENTS E JL-d EXPERTS in their field were kind enough to read my manu script while it was in preparation. For the American scene 1 want to thank Bernard DeVoto, whose merciless eye at the other end of my work meant more to me than he is ready to acknowledge. For legal matters, Judge Herbert F. Goodrich, former Dean of the Law School at the University of Pennsylvania. For the chapter on Peirce, William James, and Chauncey Wright, Professor Paul Weiss of Bryn Mawr College, co-editor of the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. The late Richard Walden Hale of Boston generously answered innumerable questions and acted as guide among the maze of legal documents in Massachusetts courthouses. Dorothy Quincy Upham Vaughan, great-niece of Dr. Holmes, supplied a kind of bold en couragement in my delineation of her ancestors that was urgently needed. I want to thank Charles and Frances Curtis, who began talking to me about Justice Holmes the day I met them many years ago Mary and Walter Howe, whose hospitality eased the way for me in Washington Thomas E. Waggaman, Marshal of the United States Supreme Court, a meticulous answerer of detailed and trouble some letters Professor Frederic T. Lewis of the Harvard Medical School, who was dryly explicit concerning the difference between Dr. Holmes the scientist and Dr. Holmes the poet Mrs. Frederick Winslow of Boston, Duncan Eaves, and Mary Lawrence Louis B. Wehlc and AHegra Woodworth Augustin Derby, Dean of the Law School at New York University. 1 want to thank Harold Ober for counsel and my brother, Henry S. Drinker, whose law office was always ready to answer my questions. Lastly . . . Every book except those written by the masters needs a blue pencil But the true editorial gift is rare. I want to thank my friend Barbara Rex for skillful editorial help, for never-failing inspiration and suggestion, and for an amazing sympathy, over a period of three years, with the laments and headaches incident to the preparation of a long manuscript, C. D. B. FOREWORD T JJLHE story of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is the story of his country. The narrative cannot begin with the flat date of his birth i 84 1. This was a man whose presence carried tradition. Everyone who met him felt it, and it was not oppressive but inspiring. Over his shoulder one glimpsed somehow his ancestors. His roots reached deep into American earth it was the strength of these roots that permitted so splendid a flowering. Wendells, Olivers, Jacksons, Holmeses solid people, sound people and adventurous people. They left Oliver Wendell Holmes, Junior, a superb inheritance, one that balanced him as the nine tenths of the iceberg we do not see balances that glittering pinnacle. To know Justice Holmes at eighty courtly, witty, scholarly, kind it is well to have acquaintance with his Calvinist grandfather, Abiel Holmes, with his handsome, worldly great-grandfather, Judge Wendell, with his mother from whom he inherited, he said, a trace of melancholy. Above all it is well to know his father, the sturdy Yankee who wrote bad verse and good books professor of anatomy, talkative five-foot-five Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table who lived upon applause and said so with engaging frankness. It is not hard to know these people. They were articulate, given to writing down what they saw and thought. And they were passion ately interested in their country. In the books they wrote, in their letters, their diaries, the welfare of the American Union plays a large part. Because of this, the opening page of our story fell naturally into place...

Product Details

• Paperback: 508 pages
• Publisher: Mcintosh Press (March 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140677734X
• ISBN-13: 978-1406777345
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,673,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Popular in approach, but not shallow, August 26, 2005

By 

Bomojaz (South Central PA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Yankee from Olympus: Justice Holmes and His Family (Hardcover)

As straight history or biography, this might not rate 5 stars, but as interesting history that captures time and place perfectly and flesh-and-blood biography that demands we observe actual people in the real world, this is a superb work. It basically relates three generations of the Holmes family of Boston, beginning with The Reverend Abiel Holmes, who lost his parrish for being too old-fashioned and hell-fire Calvinist for his congregation; his son, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, author of AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE and other works and a Harvard professor of medicine; and his son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, jr, wounded three times in the Civil War, lawyer, and eventual Justice of the Supreme Court, where he became known as "The Great Dissenter" for disagreeing with majority opinions of the Court, usually arguing for less government control and more personal freedoms. Bowen does write with the point of view of a novelist, inventing dialogue and getting into her characters' heads in a way only a novelist could do. But she embellishes rather than distorts, I think. And the book is a joy to read and has the feel of authority and deep knowledge. I actually found it hard to put down, especially in the first half of the book. Highly recommended.