White goes beyond the labels to give readers a rounded portrait of this remarkable jurist. Covering Holmes' early life and time at Harvard, his ambivalent relationship with his father, and Civil War service, White also examines Holmes' childless marriage and his reputation as a preeminent legal figure. 14 halftones. Map.

An eBook edition of this fine biography is now available. The print edition garnered extraordinary praise; a new preface brings this eBook edition up to date. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. aspired to be a poet and philosopher, was wounded in the Civil War, courted aristocratic women, became one of the greatest judges in American history, and lived long enough to give advice to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We see though Holmes’s eyes, and his searching intelligence, almost a century of American history and the slow growth of a new understanding of the Constitution. “An ideal biography for the intelligent general reader... the fascination [Holmes] exerts, a combination of toughness and style, shines through this book.” — The New Yorker “[Novick] is the type of scholar who, though trained in law, asks Harvard’s Arnold Herbarium to identify some leaves pressed into an old love letter... One opens his book with high hopes, and as chapter follows masterly chapter the hopes mature into admiration of author and awe of subject.” — Edmund Morris, The New York Times “The book’s strength lies in its fast-paced vividness of narrative and its steadiness of belief in the wholeness and stature of Holmes as a man... Novick tells Holmes’s story with verve, insight, and a command of his material. Even his footnotes capture the reader.” — Max Lerner, The New Republic “[Holmes’s life] is stuff for great biography and Sheldon M. Novick has given us just that... a work of original and exact scholarship... concise and readable, yet provides enough historical and legal background to enable the nonspecialist to read the book with comprehension and pleasure.” — Hon. Richard A. Posner, The Wall Street Journal

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, is considered by many to be the most influential American jurist. The voluminous literature devoted to his writings and legal thought, however, is diverse and inconsistent. In this study, Frederic R. Kellogg follows Holmes's intellectual path from his early writings through his judicial career. He offers a fresh perspective that addresses the views of Holmes's leading critics and explains his relevance to the controversy over judicial activism and restraint. Holmes is shown to be an original legal theorist who reconceived common law as a theory of social inquiry and who applied his insights to constitutional law. From his empirical and naturalist perspective on law, with its roots in American pragmatism, emerged Holmes's distinctive judicial and constitutional restraint. Kellogg distinguishes Holmes from analytical legal positivism and contrasts him with a range of thinkers.

First Published in 1993. Not intended as a new biography of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes or as a critical study of his legal philosophy, this book’s intention is to help fill a gap in the studies of Holmes. Without denying the power with which Holmes reacted against intellectual traditions of the nineteenth century, the author hopes to show that natural law and transcendentalist philosophy formed important vital sources of his mature legal theory.

A full-length biography by a lawyer who was Holmes' secretary.

This is the first anthology of Oliver Wendell Holmes's writings, speeches, and opinions concerning freedom of expression. Prepared by a noted free speech scholar, the book contains eight original essays designed to situate Holmes's works in historical and biographical context. The volume is enriched by extensive commentaries concerning its many entries, which consist of letters, speeches, book excerpts, articles, state court opinions, and U.S. Supreme Court opinions.

“Consistently gripping.… [I]t’s possessed of a zest and omnivorous curiosity that reflects the boundless energy of its subject.” —Steve Donoghue, Christian Science Monitor Oliver Wendell Holmes escaped death twice as a young Union officer in the Civil War. He lived ever after with unwavering moral courage, unremitting scorn for dogma, and an insatiable intellectual curiosity. During his nearly three decades on the Supreme Court, he wrote a series of opinions that would prove prophetic in securing freedom of speech, protecting the rights of criminal defendants, and ending the Court’s reactionary resistance to social and economic reforms. As a pioneering legal scholar, Holmes revolutionized the understanding of common law. As an enthusiastic friend, he wrote thousands of letters brimming with an abiding joy in fighting the good fight. Drawing on many previously unpublished letters and records, Stephen Budiansky offers the fullest portrait yet of this pivotal American figure.

With Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Legal Logic, Frederic R. Kellogg examines the early diaries, reading, and writings of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) to assess his contribution to both legal logic and general logical theory. Through discussions with his mentor Chauncey Wright and others, Holmes derived his theory from Francis Bacon’s empiricism, influenced by recent English debates over logic and scientific method, and Holmes’s critical response to John Stuart Mill’s 1843 A System of Logic. Conventional legal logic tends to focus on the role of judges in deciding cases. Holmes recognized input from outside the law—the importance of the social dimension of legal and logical induction: how opposing views of “many minds” may converge. Drawing on analogies from the natural sciences, Holmes came to understand law as an extended process of inquiry into recurring problems. Rather than vagueness or contradiction in the meaning or application of rules, Holmes focused on the relation of novel or unanticipated facts to an underlying and emergent social problem. Where the meaning and extension of legal terms are disputed by opposing views and practices, it is not strictly a legal uncertainty, and it is a mistake to expect that judges alone can immediately resolve the larger issue.