The Essential Holmes: Selections from the Letters, Speeches, Judicial Opinions, and Other Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

If you asked your average American to name a Supreme Court justice, if they could name any, it would probably be one currently sitting on the bench. After a judge leaves office, either by retirement or death, the bar associations and newspapers issue brief memorials and then the judge is forgotten. Three of the few exceptions are John Jay, John Marshall, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. The first two served at the birth of the republic, but Holmes served in Washington less than a hundred years ago. He lived a phenomenal life: the son of one of New England's most famous poets, then a soldier in the Civil War, then as an attorney in private practice, next as a justice on a state supreme court, and finally appointed by Theodore Roosevelt to the United State Supreme Court. Along the way, he wrote one of the definitive American legal books, The Common Law, published multiple law review articles, was an engaging letter writer, and wrote memorable opinions.To poach one of Holmes' lines, this work collects the wool of his writing and weaves them into a fine coat. Richard Posner is a philosophical pragmatist in the mold of Holmes and one of the few first-rate minds to serve on the federal bench in recent decades. He retired in 2017 and it is a shame he will never serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. His admiration for Holmes in clear throughout his thirty-page introduction to this volume, but he also clearly lays out Holmes' influence on legal realism and other theories of jurisprudence.To be clear, Holmes writes in a style that is often hard for a layman to understand, or even a lawyer not well-versed in antiquated legal debates. Holmes is at his best when writing letters to friends. Among them are letters to Harold Laski, Lewis Einstein, William James, John C.H. Wu, Canon Sheehan, Alice Stopford Green (published for the first time here), Frederick Pollock, and many others. Most have been collected in other volumes, but, in the same way one's e-mails would mostly be boring, many in those other collections are mundane. Posner has chipped away the dirt and left us only with the gold.We will likely never see someone of Justice Holmes' ilk on the Supreme Court ever again. TR did the rare act for a politician of choosing the best man for the job, rather than one who was popular or uncontroversial and bland. His frankness and occasionally harsh views would likewise lead him to the woodshed of public opinion. Nonetheless, it is refreshing to read the words of a man who was educated, cosmopolitan, patriotic, and of a bygone era whose voice seems eternally modern.

Brilliant. The thirty page Richard Posner introduction is worth the price of the book. Holmes was probably America's greatest jurist and legal mind with Richard Posner close behind.

. . . , but it's too damn beautiful to put it down.The sections on "Aging and Death" and "The Life Struggle" are especially thought-provoking and paint a crystal-clear portrait of one of the most brilliant people our country has ever produced.If you're interested in the evolution of judicial reasoning and the beautiful prose of an amazing American thinker, I highly recommend buying this book to read from cover to cover, or to peruse in small portions at your leisure. Either way, it's a terrific read and a great resource to have simply for the copious quotable phrases peppered throughout this collection.

If you want to know Justice Holmes, this is a must read. Essential, but thorough.

AWEsome product & service!

Superb!

I purchased this book because I had always heard such great things about Holmes & I wanted to learn more.This book may be exciting for a constitutional attorney, but for the layman it is quite boring.The letters selected by the erudite author (Posner) are languorous.I suppose that is how they wrote in those days, but I just could not get into the book & thus I know no more about Holmes than when I started.I wished I could have learned more about this fascinating person.

This is a good book on the subject of common law and Oliver Wendell Holmes and Jr. I recommend it to others and I would purchase it again.