Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
This tale was published in successive parts in the Atlantic Monthly, under the name of The Professor's Story, the first number having appeared in the third week of December, 1859.The critic who is curious in coincidences must refer to the Magazine for the date of publication of the chapter he is examining. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
I had intended to devote this particular report to an account of my replies to certain questions which have been addressed to me,-- questions which I have a right to suppose interest the public, and which, therefore, I was justified in bringing before The Teacups, and presenting to the readers of these articles. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A realistic biography
Oliver Wendell Holmes describes Emerson as an intellectual mystic, as opposed to an emotional one.This probably places Emerson very much in line with Holmes' own temperament -- this Holmes is the father of the famous and intellectually accomplished Supreme Court justice; Holmes, Sr. was himself a medical doctor and man of letters in New England.What Holmes describes as intellectual mysticism as opposed to emotional mysticism shows that Emerson never lost a realistic grounding of his beliefs, and always kept a firm grasp on things such as common sense and self reliance.

Joel Porte introduces the text, written in 1885, talking about the odd choice the rationalist Holmes must have seemed to the Transcendentalist canonisers who would have wanted a more sympathetic character.However, Holmes' overall personality made him an ideal biographer, with much more credibility in the end than a true-believing disciple of Emerson would have had in a similar biographical effort.Both Holmes and Emerson were seekers after truth, and in such had a similar spirit; both also had a good sense for the ridiculous, and managed to remain level-headed among otherwise unstable environments.

Holmes identifies Emerson as belonging to the New England 'Academic' race -- Emerson is a name that is common among academics and ministers generation after generation.This kind of inheritance is more than just cultural in Emerson's view, and in Holmes' view, who before addressing his subject, looks at the several generations back of Emerson's forebears.

Emerson finds inspiration in the things about him -- in nature, in society, and in himself.Emerson has a deep and abiding concern for the transcendent unity of all things, and that there is a spirit in the world that keeps the world together.Emerson was born into a society at a unique period, a coalescing of the first truly American generation of thinkers.While Emerson was not a particularly outstanding student in college, he nonetheless developed ways of writing, thinking and speaking that made him a prominent intellectual figure in his own time, and a mystical/religious figure as well.

Holmes had the advantage of having known Emerson enough to be able to render some personal and candid observations.After giving a general historical narrative of his life, complete with extracts from writings and correpondence, Holmes reflects on various aspects of Emerson's life, including his general personality and habits.Emerson's voice had charm both in personal conversation as well as in lecture and pulpit settings.Emerson often spoke with hesitation, according to Holmes, prefering the momentary silence to find the right word over using the wrong or less-appropriate word.These kinds of observations make Holmes' volume one of real value.

In discussing Emerson's mystical side, Holmes rarely has sympathy, but does not denigrate Emerson's own belief system. 'The knowledge, if knowledge it be, of the mystic is not transmissible,' Holmes states.It cannot be compiled and built upon by others, but is created anew in each seeker.Emerson's view of science is probably similar to Holmes' view of mysticism.

Overall, this is an excellent biography of Emerson, great at giving insight into the author, Holmes, as well. ... Read more

Book Description
Peter Gibian explores the key role played by Oliver Wendell Holmes, senior, in what was known as America's "Age of Conversation".Holmes' multivoiced writings can serve as a key to open up the closed interiors of Victorian America, whether in saloons or salons, parlors or clubs, hotels or boarding houses. Combining social, intellectual, medical, legal and literary history with close textual analysis, and setting Holmes in dialoge with Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, Fuller and Alcott, Gibian radically redefines the context for our understanding of the major literary works of the American Renaissance.Download Description
Peter Gibian explores the key role played by Oliver Wendell Holmes in what was known as America's 'Age of Conversation'. He was both a model and an analyst of the dynamic conversational form which became central to many areas of mid-nineteenth-century life. Holmes' multivoiced writings can serve as a key to open up the closed interiors of VictorianAmerica, whether in saloons or salons, parlours or clubs, hotels or boarding-houses, schoolrooms or doctors' offices. Combining social, intellectual, medical, legal and literary history with close textual analysis, and setting Holmes in dialogue with Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, Fuller, Alcott and finally with his son, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior, Gibian radically redefines the context for our understanding of the major literary works of the American Renaissance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Golden Age of Conversation
According to Gibian, two oral practices flourished in antebellum America: the lecture (or sermon) and the conversation.Lectures, such as Emerson?s "The American Scholar" and sermons, such as the abolitionist sermons of Henry Ward Beecher, are well-known examples of this hyper-speechifying, Chataqua-inspired heavy, Second Great Awakening era.But it was also known as the Golden Age of Conversation, and its greatest practitioner was generally agreed to be Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior.

Gibian is out to revise and enhance Holmes? current reputation on the basis of a new critical reading.Holmes was considered an important American writer until the 1920s when he was excised from the American canon by the modernists.They depicted him as willfully provincial (because he named Boston the "Hub" of the world), and elitist (he invented the term "Boston Brahmin"). Gibian attempts a rescue by noting that it one of Holmes? characters, a provincial, town booster named "Little Boston" in the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" who dubbed Boston the Hub.Gibian suggests that Boston Brahmin was an appellation meant to poke fun of the contemplative, upper class, pedigreed Bostonian who self-consciously removed himself from the hurly-burly of the common run. But much more than placing the "Hub" and "Boston Brahmin" in context, Gibian attempts to show that Holmes encouraged democratic conversation.That unlike his more elitist friends in the Saturday Club, he was a democrat, or a true republican, perhaps.

He does this by suggesting that Holmes? was equal parts house-breaker as house-keeper, invoking Mikhail Bakhtin?s theory of the carnival as appropriate to Holmes? comic, celebratory, and democratic view of American conversation as an open, free-wheeling discourse where anyone could join the Autocrat at his table (as long as they played by his conversation-enlivening rules, one of which seems to be to play the devil?s advocate at all times).Gibian elaborates on those rules at some length, noting philosopher Richard Rorty?s views on how a true dialogue can take place follows many of the same basic rules.

In his detailed examination of Holmes's "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." Gibian shows Holmes was attracted to levity (levitation, lightness) through his mother, perhaps as a reaction to his Puritan Minister father?s gravity (grave, gravitas).His portrait of Holmes? early life (he could never stop talking as a boy), his description of Holmes? early readings and re-readings of early Renaissance humorists such as Rabelais, his continual search for bon mots and mot justes in those old texts, his eminent position as the only French-trained doctor in America (whose first paper on puerperal fever is an acknowledged medical classic), help us understand how Holmes came to be able to converse with everyone.The last of the generalists, in the time just before specialization in science arose, he was able to enter into conversations on any subject, draw knowledge from one to inform the other.And, he would take any side in any conversation, to try it on for size, refusing to stick with any position, believing that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, a trait that might make him the first multi-perspectivist.

Conversation is dead now, and its slow passing happened concomitantly with the rise of America?s power and industrial prowess, and, of course, the TV, which brings us the great sermons of the happy earthly life of consumption.There are some who say the Internet is bringing back the conversation.But for everyone who says that, there is another expert who tells us of its corrupting power.Meanwhile, the American breakfast and dinner table hears a few spectral conversations around it on the holidays, and the dining room still lingers in the American home.But it is no longer a performance space. Talking just doesn?t seem all that important anymore. For Holmes and his generation there was some urgency in conversation: they were trying to invent a democratic discourse, after all. It was a time when talking, joining clubs and associations, and sharing ideas seemed greatly to matter.After all, the great experiment had only recently begun.And space and race, the two quintessentially American topics, intimately intertwined, were critical issues needing resolution. Eventually, this a conversation that was conducted using different , and deadly, means. ... Read more

Book Description
Known as the "Great Dissenter," Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote some of the most eloquent opinions in the history of the United States Supreme Court. A brilliant legal mind who served on the high court into his nineties, Holmes was responsible for some of the most important judicial opinions of the twentieth century. Now, in this superb short biography, G. Edward White offers readers a lively, informative portrait of this singular individual. The book first sketches Holmes's early years--his childhood in Boston, his undergraduate years at Harvard (which his father and both grandfathers also attended), and his valiant service in the Civil War, during which he was severely wounded three times. After the war, Holmes went into private law practice, wrote his landmark treatise The Common Law in 1881, had a short tenure on the Harvard Law School faculty, and spent 20 years as a judge on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts before being named to the U.S. Supreme Court. The author focuses on his remarkable 30-year service as a Supreme Court Justice, beginning in 1902, and details Holmes's most significant cases--Abrams v. United States, Northern Securities Co. v. United States, Lochner v. New York, Schenck v. United States, and others--which limited working hours, set a mandatory minimum wage, protected women's rights, legalized labor unions, and defined freedom of speech. These decisions--as well as The Common Law--are highly regarded to this day. A new volume in the Lives and Legacy series, this marvelous short biography offers an ideal introduction to a towering figure in American law. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Fine Concise Biography of the Justice
Who better to write a short biography of Justice Holmes than the author of the virtually definitive major biography of the Justice, "Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self."This short biography is part of Oxford's "Lives and Legacies" series.I had some concern that the book would either be so short as to not really discuss much detail about Holmes, or that it would be so simplified for a more general audience as to lose the incisive vigor of White's previous books on Holmes.Happily, neither fear was confirmed: there is plenty of meat on the skeleton and, while White takes time to explain some key legal concepts for the non-specialist, his analysis still sparkles.

The book stands as a superb brief introduction to the Justice and some of his key contributions.There are eleven pages of helpful notes; some interesting photographs; a chronology; and a bibliography for further reading. Also quite helpful is the use of what White terms "sidebars," which are extended quotes from Holmes' letters and opinions, so that the reader gets a sense of Holmes writing styles.Wisely, White does not try to cram too much into this short book--he well covers OWH prior to his appointment, and limits his discussion of the Justice's Supreme Court opinions to a few areas such as free speech.He also takes aim at the Holmes as "the great dissenter" image, and explains how Frankfurther and other disciples used "The New Republic" and other publicity devices to create the "Yankee from Olympus" image we associate with OWH.

There is just a tremendous amount of useful information contained within 137 pages of text.The writing flows well and is quite interesting even to those of us who have gone many rounds with the Justice.A small jewel to be sure. ... Read more

Book Description
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) is, arguably the most important American jurist of the twentieth century, and his essay The Path of the Law, first published in 1898, is the seminal work in American legal theory. This volume brings together some of the most distinguished legal scholars from the United States and Canada to examine competing understandings of The Path of the Law and its implications for contemporary American jurisprudence. For the reader's convenience, the essay is republished in an Appendix.The book will be of interest to professionals and students in the philosophy, history, economics, and sociology of law. ... Read more

Book Description
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Poet Laureate of Boston, wrote this poem in 1875 as part of the Centenary celebration of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Two months after Lexington and Concord, American forces seized some high ground in Charleston, threatening the British fleet and Boston, itself.Within hours the British retaliated.While the battle of June 17, 1775 was brief (the colonials ran out of ammunition and had to retreat) it was a very costly victory for the British Army, and it confirmed that the skirmishes of April 19th had heralded a true revolution.
Howard Pyle, artist, illustrator and author of many books,was noted for his ability to capture the American spirit in his works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

La gran decepción
Esperaba un libro al estilo de Dan Brown o algo así. Pero fui decepcionado bastantemente. Es una historia muy tedia y aburrida. Ni me gustan los caracteres ni el estilo de escribir de Pearl.

Aparentemente se trata de una novela policíaca y de verdad hay asesinados horribles. Pero toda la tensión desaparece durante las investigaciones del Club Dante.

Después de casi 200 paginas cedía. No terminaba el libro. Mejor así; al menos eso es lo que yo creo.

¿Por qué razón aun así 2 estrellas? Bueno, la idea fundamental de este libro de Pearl es buena. Solamente la transformación en una novela negra en mi opinión es mal. Muy mal. No puedo recomendar El Club Dante. ... Read more

Book Description
The New York Times Bestseller

Boston, 1865. A series of murders, all of them inspired by scenes in Dante’s Inferno. Only an elite group of America’s first Dante scholars—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J. T. Fields—can solve the mystery. With the police baffled, more lives endangered, and Dante’s literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and find the killer.


From the Trade Paperback edition.Download Description

Words can bleed.

In 1865 Boston, the literary geniuses of the Dante Club -- poets and Harvard professors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell, along with publisher J. T. Fields -- are finishing America's first translation of The Divine Comedy and preparing to unveil Dante's remarkable visions to the New World. The powerful Boston Brahmins at Harvard College are fighting to keep Dante in obscurity, believing that the infiltration of foreign superstitions into American minds will prove as corrupting as the immigrants arriving at Boston Harbor.

The members of the Dante Club fight to keep a sacred literary cause alive, but their plans fall apart when a series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge. Only this small group of scholars realizes that the gruesome killings are modeled on the descriptions of Hell's punishments from Dante's Inferno. With the lives of the Boston elite and Dante's literary future in America at stake, the Dante Club members must find the killer before the authorities discover their secret.

Customer Reviews (318)

a great read
I assign this book for my literature classes to connect a very old text to a more modern text and of bringing Dante to America, so to speak. Pearl does a wonderful job of pulling out parts of the Inferno for readers to remember or reread.

Great mystery and historical fiction novel
Overall, just great and well written. I can only say that I hope his next novel is as good.

Efficiently written and occasionally exciting thriller
This novel is based upon historical fact. In 1867 the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published the first-ever American translation of Dante's "Divine Comedy". In preparing his translation he had the assistance of his fellow-poets Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell, his publisher James T Fields and the historian George Washington Greene. This endeavour does not appear to have met with universal approval. Although earlier British translations were available, Dante's poem was not well-known in mid-nineteenth century America, where Italian was not widely spoken. (The great influx of Italian-American immigrants was not to take place until later in the century). In Britain, Dante's criticisms of the Papacy meant that he was sometimes regarded as a proto-Protestant, but in an America whose religious life was still dominated by Puritan ideology the "Divine Comedy" was widely regarded, especially by those who had not read it, as a pernicious work of Papist superstition.

The book is a historical crime mystery set in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, during the autumn and winter of 1865, a few months after the end of the American Civil War. A number of the city's most prominent citizens- a judge, a clergyman, a businessman- are found murdered in horrific and bizarre ways. With one exception, the police investigating the crimes do not realise the significance of the killer's methods. Longfellow and his friends, however, realise that all the killings parallel the punishments meted out to sinners in Dante's "Inferno". To their horror they begin to suspect that the person responsible is committing these crimes in an attempt to blacken Dante's reputation and thus sabotage their translation. Worse still, the Dante connection means that they themselves might be suspected of the killings. Together with Nicholas Rey, Boston's first black policeman and the only man outside their circle to realise the connection between the murders and Dante, they try to track down the killer. There is, however, no shortage of suspects. Many of Boston's intellectual elite, especially the powerful Corporation which controls Harvard University, are vehemently opposed to the idea of a Dante translation being published in their city.

Perhaps my main criticism would be that also made by another reviewer, namely that the book does not really convey a sense of time and place. Although the intellectual background is set out well, we do not really get much sense that we are in nineteenth-century Boston rather than, say, nineteenth-century London or twentieth-century Boston. The one part of the book where Matthew Pearl's writing does really come to life is in the vivid passages describing one character's experiences in the Civil War. The characterisation is also well done, with each of the three poets emerging as a character in his own right- Holmes timid and hesitant, Lowell impulsive and Longfellow calm and rational.

I must confess that I am probably not the ideal reader for the book, which seems to have been aimed at those whose literary interests encompass not only Dante but also detective stories and nineteenth-century American poetry. While I have read the "Divine Comedy", crime fiction, historical or otherwise, is not really my favourite literary genre, and, Longfellow apart, I am not particularly familiar with the Fireside Poets, who are much less widely known in Britain than in America. (I now realise that I had in fact conflated Holmes with his son Oliver Wendell Holmes junior, the distinguished Supreme Court Justice). I did, however, find "The Dante Club" an efficiently-written and at times exciting thriller, one that had me turning the pages as quickly as I could to find out the identity of the killer.

Slow Moving, but Interesting Historical Mystery
THE DANTE CLUB takes place in 1865 Boston, and Matthew Pearl does a great job re-creating that time period for the reader.In particular, he does a good job informing the reader of how American intellectuals thought and acted during the post-Civil war period.I learned a lot from this novel, and am now more interested in this era of US History.

Unfortunately, THE DANTE CLUB also tries to be a thriller of sorts, and I don't think it succeeds very well at that level.The plot moves too slowly and is bogged down with too much historical detail.Pearl tries to write in the antiquated prose of the 19th century, and as a modern reader I found this style very difficult to get into.

Also, the four members of the Dante Club are ultimately quite bland -- most of them are privileged, wealthy members of the elite.I found them historically interesting, but not particularly likable.The mulatto policeman is the most intriguing character, but he's not in the novel enough to establish a real presence.

Unfortunately, the lack of good characters leads to an real absence of drama.As a result, there is little in this book that engages the readers emotional interest.I suspect many will find this book boring, and many of the negative Amazon reviews reinforce this point.

I would mainly recommend this novel to people with an intellectual interest in this historical period.If you're looking for a fast-paced DA VINCI CODE experience, or an intense drama with compelling characters, you will most likely be disappointed with this book.

I do not like it, Sam I am.
This is the kind of book that kind of seems that it was written for people like me. I was supposed to like it. Unfortunately, I could barely get through it. It is clearly designed to appeal to people with a yen for historical fiction more than it was supposed to appeal to mystery fans. I found that it irritated me on both levels. That's actually quite an accomplishment in and of itself.

I found the historical literary characters to be precious and charmless. The dialogue was trying very hard to be smart. All of this is a shame, since it is obvious from the caliber of the prose that Pearl can write. I agree that he is skilled, I just don't like much at all how he uses that skill. I am probably a little biased, since this period in letters is one of my favorites. I have my own internal view about how these men and women acted and lived. And it does not jibe at all with the characters that The Dante Club brought to life. I guess that this is an occupational hazard of writing about historical figures.

Finally, to add insult to injury, I figured the murderer out too early in the book. It made some of the climactic exciting scenes significantly less exciting.

The background information about the introduction of Dante in the US was very interesting. Too bad that Pearl did not choose to write a magazine article instead of historical fiction. ... Read more