Immagine dell'autore.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)

Autore di The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

124+ opere 1,861 membri 20 recensioni

Sull'Autore

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" mostra altro 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) mostra meno
Fonte dell'immagine: 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

Opere di Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Poems (1877) 190 copie
Over the Teacups (1891) 68 copie
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1884) 42 copie
The Guardian Angel (1891) 29 copie
Medical Essays (1882) 28 copie
A Mortal Antipathy (1892) 20 copie
The Last Leaf 8 copie
Dorothy Q (1893) 8 copie
Songs in many keys (2004) 6 copie
The School-Boy (1879) — Autore — 3 copie
The Chambered Nautilus (1934) 3 copie
Ivy From Holmes (1910) 1 copia
Wit & Humour: Poems (1867) 1 copia
On lending a punch-bowl (2010) 1 copia
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1978) 1 copia
Holmwa Poems (1900) 1 copia

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Witches, Witches, Witches (1958) — Collaboratore — 32 copie
American Literature: The Makers and the Making (In Two Volumes) (1973) — Collaboratore, alcune edizioni25 copie
100 Story Poems (1951) — Collaboratore — 21 copie
Poems of Magic and Spells (1960) — Collaboratore — 14 copie
English Narrative Poems (1909) — Collaboratore — 12 copie
American Poems 1779-1900 (1922) — Collaboratore — 11 copie
Tales of Witches, Ghosts and Goblins — Collaboratore — 2 copie
The Best of American Poetry [Audio] (1997) — Collaboratore — 1 copia

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Recensioni

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.
 
Segnalato
proustbot | 9 altre recensioni | Jun 19, 2023 |
couldn't finish, fairly dry and dated
 
Segnalato
ritaer | 9 altre recensioni | Jul 24, 2021 |
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.
½
 
Segnalato
EricCostello | 9 altre recensioni | Jul 21, 2019 |
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.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
madepercy | 9 altre recensioni | Nov 7, 2017 |

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Statistiche

Opere
124
Opere correlate
22
Utenti
1,861
Popolarità
#13,832
Voto
3.8
Recensioni
20
ISBN
278
Lingue
2

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