Oliver Wendell Holmes. Riverside Edition. 13 vols. Prose, Vols. I–X; Poetry, XI–XIII. 1891. Standard Library Edition, 1892; Autocrat Edition, 1904; both 15 vols. (uniform with Riverside Edition, with added life by J. T. Morse as Vols. XIV and XV). The best single volume of poems is the Cambridge Edition, 1895. His work appeared in book form originally as follows: Poems, 1836; Boylston Prize Dissertations, 1838; Homeopathy, and its Kindred Delusions, 1842; Urania, 1846; Poems, 1849; Astræa, 1850; The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, 1858; The Professor at the Breakfast-Table, 1860; Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science, 1861; Elsie Venner, 1861; Songs in Many Keys, 1862; Soundings from the Atlantic, 1864; Humorous Poems, 1865; The Guardian Angel, 1867; The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, 1872; Songs of Many Seasons, 1875; John Lothrop Motley, 1879; The Iron Gate, 1880; Medical Essays, 1883; Pages from an Old Volume of Life, 1883; Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1885; A Mortal Antipathy, 1885; Our Hundred Days in Europe, 1887; Before the Curfew, and Other Poems, 1888; Over the Teacups, 1891.

Bibliography

A volume compiled by George B. Ives. 1907. Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. II, pp. 540–543.

Biography and Criticism

The standard life is by John T. Morse. 1896. 2 vols.

Collins, Churton. The Poetry and Poets of America.

Cooke, G. W. Dr. Holmes at Fourscore. New England Magazine, October, 1889.

Curtis, G. W. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Literary and Social Essays. 1895.

Dwight, Thomas. Reminiscences of Dr. Holmes as Professor of Anatomy. Scribner’s, January, 1895.

Fields, Annie. Personal Recollections and Unpublished Letters, in Authors and Friends. 1896.

Gilder, Jeannette L. A Book and its Story, in The Genial “Autocrat.” Critic, May 9, 1896.

Hale, E. E. An Afternoon with Dr. Holmes in Human Documents. 1895.

Higginson, T. W. Cheerful Yesterdays. 1898.

Higginson, T. W. Contemporaries. 1899.

Higginson, T. W. Old Cambridge. 1900.

Howells, W. D. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Harper’s, December, 1896.

Howells, W. D. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Literary Friends and Acquaintances. 1900.

Kennedy, W. S. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Poet, Litterateur, Scientist. 1883.

Lang, Andrew. Adventures among Books. 1905.

Lodge, H. C. Certain Accepted Heroes and Other Essays. 1897.

Lowell, J. R. A Fable for Critics. 1848.

Matthews, Brander. Cambridge History of American Literature. Vol. II, Bk. II, in chap. xxiii.

Meynell, Alice. The Rhythm of Life and Other Essays. 1897.

Richardson, C. F. American Literature, Bk. II, chap. vi. 1889.

Stedman, E. C. Poets of America. 1885.

Vincent, L. H. American Literary Masters. 1906.

Woodberry, G. E. Nation, October 11, 1894.

TOPICS AND PROBLEMS

Read any one of Holmes’s “Breakfast-Table” Series or any one of his novels for evidences of his prevailing belief in the virtues of an intellectual aristocracy.

Do the same thing with any of these seven books for the recurrence of illustrations, allusions, or whole passages which only a physician would have been likely to write.

Note in any of these books or in any selected group of his poems evidences of his respect for the broad contributions of science and scientific thought.

Read poems and passages of broadest jocosity and see if you find any wisdom intermixed with their ingenuity and their good nature.

Compare the “society verse” of Holmes with that of Austin Dobson or Brander Matthews.

Read at least a half-dozen poems of Holmes written in satire on contemporary men or movements and generalize on them as you can.

Read “Poetry,” “Urania,” and “To my Readers” for Holmes’s theory of the content and the purpose of poetry. Compare with the theory of some other American or English poet.

Read “Elsie Venner,” “The Guardian Angel,” or “The Mortal Antipathy” and criticize it for its virtues and defects as a novel.

Read “The Guardian Angel” for the autobiographical material discoverable in the character of Byles Gridley.