Oliver Wendell Holmes Autograph Letter Signed.

HOLMES, Oliver Wendell.

Item Number: 100148

Autograph letter signed and entirely in the hand of Oliver Wendell Holmes on Supreme Court letterhead. Dated November 20th 1920, the letter reads, “Mr. Barnes called last Evening and delivered to me the handsome Copy of your amended essay. In his presence I established in my shelves, its place being by the side of a fine edition of my much admired Malthus. Mr. Barnes gave a charming account of you and I enjoyed his call very much – none the less that he had been received at any earlier moment with some suspicion as an unknown man with a bag. I hardly know which gives me the greater pleasure – your kind estimate of my work or the admirable quality of yours. On both grounds I am very much obliged to you and am Sincerely yours, O.W. Holmes.” Holmes’ legal philosophy was strongly influenced by the political and economic observations of Thomas Robert Malthus, powerfully expressed in his best-known work An Essay on the Principle of Population, published in 1798. Matted and framed with a drawing of Holmes. The entire piece measures 15 inches by 12 inches.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932, and as Acting Chief Justice of the United States January–February 1930. Noted for his long service, his concise and pithy opinions and his deference to the decisions of elected legislatures, he is one of the most widely cited United States Supreme Court justices in history, particularly for his "clear and present danger" opinion for a unanimous Court in the 1919 case of Schenck v. United States, and is one of the most influential American common law judges, honored during his lifetime in Great Britain as well as the United States. Holmes retired from the Court at the age 90, making him the oldest Justice in the Supreme Court's history. He also served as an Associate Justice and as Chief Justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and was Weld Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, of which he was an alumnus.