Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was an American physician, poet, and polymath based in Boston. Grouped among the fireside poets, he was acclaimed by his peers as one of the best writers of the day. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). He was also an important medical reformer. In addition to his work as an author and poet, Holmes also served as a physician, professor, lecturer, inventor, and, although he never practiced it, he received formal training in law.
Holmes, c. 1879
Birthplace of Oliver Wendell Holmes in Cambridge
Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1841
USS Constitution under sail in 1997
The fireside poets – also known as the schoolroom or household poets – were a group of 19th-century American poets associated with New England. These poets were very popular among readers and critics both in the United States and overseas. Their domestic themes and messages of morality presented in conventional poetic forms deeply shaped their era until their decline in popularity at the beginning of the 20th century.
1913 image featuring portraits representing four of the fireside poets: Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, and Whittier
The addition of Sidney Lanier, Walt Whitman, and Edgar Allan Poe to the frontispiece of Edmund Clarence Stedman's An American Anthology in 1900 indicated the beginning of a canonical shift away from the fireside poets.
Bryant
Holmes