Oliver Wendell Holmes was one of the most influential figures in American law. As a Supreme Court Justice, he wrote foundational opinions about such important constitutional issues as freedom of speech and the limits of state regulatory power. As a scholar and Massachusetts High Court judge, he helped to reshape the common law for the modern industrial era. And yet, despite the many accounts of his career, Holmes himself remains an enigma. This book is the first to explore the nineteenth-century New England influences so crucial to the formation of his character. Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson's transcendentalism, Holmes belonged to a group of men who formulated a philosophy known as American pragmatism that stood as an alternative to English empiricism and German rationalism. This innovative study places Holmes within the transcendentalist, pragmatist tradition and thereby unlocks his unique identity and contribution to American law. Wells' nuanced analysis will appeal to legal scholars, historians, philosophers, and general readers alike.

'Catharine Pierce Wells has performed a great service with her account of Holmes’ personal religion, portrayed for the first time, a pragmatic religion of duty, service, and selfless commitment to fairness in adjudication. Holmes’ moral character seems inadequate to us today, Wells concedes, but his failings were limitations of the law in his time and place as much as they were personal defects.'

Sheldon Novick - author of Honorable Justice: The Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes

'Wells has courageously added to the immense literature on the life and work of Oliver Wendell Holmes. An expert on the philosophy of American pragmatism, Wells - without ignoring Holmes’ legal positivism - successfully reimagines Holmes’ life and work in the context of American philosophical pragmatism of his time.'

Margaret Jane Radin - University of Toronto

'Professor Wells has written a remarkably thoughtful and compelling book. Part biography and part intellectual history, it shows how Oliver Wendell Holmes was shaped by the social, philosophical, and religious currents of his time. Elegantly written and filled with sparkling insight, it sheds new light on the inner life of one of America’s greatest judges.'

Thomas Healy - Seton Hall University, New Jersey

'Professor Wells skillfully and knowledgeably portrays Holmes, his life, and the influences upon him, in their complex entirety. She takes us through Civil War combat into science, religion, philosophy, and law. Weaving them together, Holmes is renewed as a compelling standard for the continuing challenge to our national intelligence and purpose.'

Frederick Kellogg - George Washington University