Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
Author of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table
About the Author
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (August 29, 1809 - October 7, 1894) was an American physician, poet, professor, lecturer, and author based in Boston. A member of the Fireside Poets, his peers acclaimed him as one of the best writers of the day. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" show more series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). He was also an important medical reformer. Holmes was a professor of anatomy and physiology at Harvard College for 35 years. His literary fame came relatively early when in 1830 he published a few lines of verse in a Boston newspaper in which he objected to the dismantling of the frigate Constitution, which had served its nation victoriously in the Tripolitan War and the War of 1812. The poem, "Old Ironside," was a great success, both for Holmes as a poet and in saving the frigate. However, his medical studies left Holmes little leisure for literature for the next 25 years. That changed, however, with the publication of an animated series of essays in the newly founded Atlantic Monthly in 1857 and 1858, and afterwards published in book form as The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). Not only did these essays help secure the magazine's success, but also brought Holmes widespread popularity. Holmes as an essayist has been compared with all of the great writers in that genre, from Michel de Montaigne to Charles Lamb, but his compositions are closer to conversational than to formal prose. Later volumes---The Professor at the Breakfast-Table (1860), The Poet at the Breakfast-Table (1872), and Over the Teacups (1891)---extend the autocrat's delightfully egotistical talks, mainly of Boston and New England, in which Holmes was, by turns, brilliantly witty and extremely serious. During these same years, he also wrote three so-called medicated novels: Elsie Venner (1861), The Guardian Angel (1867), and A Mortal Antipathy (1885). Though undistinguished as literary documents, they are important early studies of that "mysterious borderland which lies between physiology and psychology," and they demonstrate that Holmes was advanced in his conception of the causes and progress of neuroses and mental disease. Holmes died quietly after falling asleep in the afternoon of Sunday, October 7, 1894. As his son, the U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., wrote, "His death was as peaceful as one could wish for those one loves. He simply ceased to breathe." Holmes's memorial service was held at King's Chapel and overseen by Edward Everett Hale. Holmes was buried alongside his wife in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Holmes c. 1879 By Armstrong & Co. (Boston, Mass.), - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003654010/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33849886
Works by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
The one hoss shay,: With its companion poems How the old horse won the bet & The broomstick train, (1892) 19 copies
The works of Oliver Wendell Holmes In Thirteen Volumes (includes vols. XIV & XV Life and Letters) by Houghton , Mifflin… (2009) 19 copies
The Complete Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Volume VIII - Pages From an Old Volume of Life (1884) 15 copies
The Breakfast-Table Series: The Autocrat Of The Breakfast-Table, The Professor At The Breakfast- Table; The Poet At The… (1890) 15 copies
One Hoss Shay and Other Poems 9 copies
The Last Leaf 8 copies
The Complete Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Autocrat Edition. Volume XIII. Poetical Works, Volume II. (1888) 8 copies
Mechanism in Thought and Morals 5 copies
The psychiatric novels of Oliver Wendell Holmes; abridgment, introduction and psychiatric annotations (1946) 5 copies
Opals from Holmes 4 copies
The Iron Gate, & Other Poems 3 copies
THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE [with] THE POET OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE [with] THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE… (1891) 3 copies
Astraea : The balance of illusions : a poem delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College, August 14,… (1850) 3 copies
Pearls From Holmes 2 copies
The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes - Volume 05: Poems of the Class of '29(1851-1889) (2010) 2 copies
One hoss shay, and other poems 2 copies
Songs of many seasons 2 copies
Old Ironsides (Short Story) 2 copies
Before the curfew 2 copies
The Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes. In Fourteen Volumes, Vol. XIV. The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes. In… (2016) 1 copy
4 unidentified books 1 copy
JUSTICE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. His Book Notices and Uncollected Letters and Papers. Edited and Annotated by Harry C.… (1936) 1 copy
Widger's Quotations from the Project Gutenberg Editions of the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. 1 copy
The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever: Read Before the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, and Published at the… (2017) 1 copy
An Introductory Lecture, Delivered at the Massachusetts Medical College, November 3, 1847 (Classic Reprint) (2017) 1 copy
The Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes - 1. The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, Every Man His Own Boswell [ The… (1904) 1 copy
Holmes Leaflets: Poems And Prose Passages From The Works Of Oliver Wendell Holmes (1881) (2010) 1 copy
Holmes's Works 1 copy
Memorials Of The Sixtieth Wedding Anniversary Of Sarah Swain Hathaway And John Murray Forbes: Feb. 8, 1834-1894 (2017) 1 copy
Holmes' Early Poems 1 copy
Old Ironsides [poem] 1 copy
Modern Classics; Selections From the Breakfast Table Series, and Pages From an Old Volume of Life (1883) 1 copy
My Hunt After the Captain 1 copy
Dead, Yet Living: An Address Delivered At Keene, New Hampshire, Memorial Day, May 30, 1884 (1884) (2009) 1 copy
Oliver Wendell Holmes papers 1 copy
Urania: a rhymed lesson 1 copy
An Excerpt from a Speech 1 copy
POEMS BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AND JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (AMERICAN AUTHORS IN PROSE AND POETRY) 1 copy
The Complete Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Autocrat Edition. Volume VI. The Guardian Angel. 1 copy
Associated Works
The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present (2020) — Contributor — 83 copies
The Best American Humorous Short Stories [Edited by Alexander Jessup] (1920) — Contributor — 60 copies
Published and Perished: Memoria, Eulogies, and Remembrances of American Writers (2002) — Contributor — 37 copies
Buzz Words: Poems About Insects (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series) (2021) — Contributor — 34 copies
Out of the Best Books: An Anthology of Literature, Vol. 5: Community Responsibility (1969) — Contributor — 30 copies
Out of the Best Books: An Anthology of Literature, Vol. 4: The World Around Us (1968) — Contributor — 29 copies
American Literature: The Makers and the Making (In Two Volumes) (1973) — Contributor, some editions — 25 copies
Tales of Witches, Ghosts and Goblins — Contributor — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1809-08-29
- Date of death
- 1894-10-07
- Burial location
- Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- Place of death
- Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- Places of residence
- Paris, France
- Education
- Phillips Academy (1825)
Harvard College (MD)
École de Médecine (1833) - Occupations
- professor (Anatomy and Physiology)
physician
writer
author
poet
essayist - Relationships
- Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr. (son)
Hawthorne, Nathaniel (friend)
James, Henry, Sr. (friend)
Jackson, Ameila Lee (wife) - Organizations
- Fireside Poets
- Awards and honors
- Parkman Professor of Anatomy and Physiology (Harvard)
The Hall of Fame for Great Americans (1910) - Short biography
- While dean, Holmes attempted to admit the first African-Americans and the first woman to the Harvard Medical School.
Members
Reviews
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes
In a year's worth of columns for the nascent Atlantic Monthly, an orator holds forth on shoes, ships, and sealing wax over a series of boarding-house breakfasts. His audience, among the clatter of silverware and tea cups, is alternately impressed and skeptical at his assertions.
I was enormously disappointed in this book. If the narrator is indeed an autocrat, I'm all for revolution and bringing up the guillotine. Turgid and leaden in its delivery, not particularly funny, nor particularly wise. In short, the autocrat is a windy bore. Not recommended.
This little book took me some time to read. At first, I thought I might write down some of the quotes from it, but soon I realised that each page had a memorable quote and I decided to leave the possibility that I will remember this book should any of the various quotes be needed again in the future. I daresay at this I shall fail but if I put it to memory that there are many important quotes in this work, I may well recover some of its hidden gems. I found Oliver Wendell Holmes to read like that other three-named American, Ralph Waldo Emerson, although less of a "Churchman", rather than a divinity address he had a divinity student at the boarding house table. This book was originally written as a series of articles for The Atlantic Monthly first written in 1857 with the first serial of this book appearing in its first edition. The work lends itself to being read in a stop-start fashion, as if it were meant to be serialised, and there is so much packed into so few sentences that it takes some time to absorb the sheer depth of wit, meaning, humour, learnedness, and intellect on display. The interspersed poetry had me wonder at times why poetry is so "on the nose" these days (Random House does not accept manuscripts of poetry, and recently, a quote on the movie The Big Short: "The truth is like poetry. And everyone fucking hates poetry"). I think we miss something as a result. But not so in Holmes' time. Nevertheless, this took a long time to digest, even though it is not a difficult read.… (more)
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- Works
- 124
- Also by
- 22
- Members
- 1,871
- Popularity
- #13,762
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 20
- ISBNs
- 278
- Languages
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