Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography

Thousands of short American lives — soldiers, inventors, preachers, governors, novelists — each given a paragraph: born where, did what, and why anyone remembered.

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Holmes, Oliver Wendell

equally noted as a poet, novelist, essayist, and physician, is one of the most witty, original and brilliant writers of the nineteenth century; born in Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 29, 1809, was educated partly at Phillips academy, graduating at Harvard when twenty years of age. Young Oliver then spent a year in studying law. but very soon abandoned the law in order to enter upon the study of medicine, which course he pursued in Europe, chiefly in Paris. In 1838 Mr.

Holmes became professor of anatomy and physiology in Dartmouth college, which position he held until the time of his marriage, in 1840, when he removed to Boston, and there won much success as a practicing physician and as a literary writer. In 1847 he was appointed to the chair of anatomy and physiology in Harvard-the seat of the medical department of this university being in Boston-a post which he filled with honor until 1882. Dr. Holmes was one of the founders of the Atlantic Monthly Magazine, to which he contributed from time to time; and in the pages of this periodical first appeared The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. His works are:

Autocrat of the Breakfast Table; Professor at the Breakfast Table; Poet at the Breakfast Table; Mechanism in Thought and Morals; Memoir of Motley; Over the Teacups; Our Hundred Days in Europe; Life of Emerson; Medical Essays; Elsie Venner; The Guardian Angel; A Mortal Antipathy; Currents and Counter Currents; Pages from an Old The The The Volume of Life, comprise his prose works.

In verse his publications include, Urania; Astræa; Songs in Many Keys; Songs of Many Seasons; The Iron Gate; The School-Boy; and Before the Curfew. He died in 1894.

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