A valuable compilation, this volume contains Holmes' most famous speeches and papers from 1885 to 1918. Its publication in 1920 was an important event in the legal community, and it was reviewed with great enthusiasm in the major journals and law reviews. Roscoe Pound offered the finest assessment in "Judge Holmes's Contributions to the Science of Law," an essay-review from 1921 that analyzed the place of these writings in the development of American law from the 1880s to the 1920: "Rereading them consecutively in their new form and remembering the dates of their original publication, one can but see that their author has done more than lead American juristic thought of the
present generation. Above all others he has shaped the methods and ideas that are characteristic of the present as distinguished from the immediate past.": Harvard Law Review 34 (1920-1921):449. ". . . Collected Legal Essays is a good vertical section of the mind of that judge who beyond any other of his generation has impressed his ideas on the structure and course of the law."- Learned Hand.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. [1841-1935] served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932. Known as "The Great Dissenter" on the Court because of the brilliant legal reasoning found in his written opinions, he often differed in opinion from Theodore Roosevelt, who had appointed him to the bench. As a young man he attended Harvard College, served in the American Civil War among the "Harvard Regiment" and was seriously wounded. After the war he attended, and later taught at Harvard Law School before his appointment to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Well known for his legal philosophy espoused here and in The Common Law, Holmes proposed that the law was not a science founded on abstract universal principles but a body of practices that responded to particular situations.
CONTENTS
Early English Equity, 1885
The Law. Speech, 1885
The Profession of the Law. Part of an Address, 1886
On Receiving the Degree of LL.D. Speech, 1886
The Use of Law Schools. Oration, 1886
Agency, 1891
Privilege, Malice and Intent, 1894
Learning and Science. Speech, 1895
Executors, 1895
The Bar as a Profession, 1896
Speech at Brown University, 1897
The Path of the Law, 1897
Legal Interpretation, 1899
Law in Science and Science in Law. Address, 1889
Speech at Bar Association Dinner, 1900
Montesquieu, 1900
John Marshall. From the Bench, February 4, 1901
Address at Northwestern University Law School, 1902
Economic Elements, 1904
Maitland, 1907
Holdsworth's English Law, 1909
Law and the Court. Speech, 1913
Introduction to Continental Legal Historical Series, 1913
Ideals and Doubts, 1915
Bracton, 1915
Natural Law, 1918