The Holmes-Sheehan Correspondence: The Letters of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Canon Patrick Augustine Sheehan / Edition 2

by David H. Burton

Overview

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., distinguished American jurist, and Patrick Augustine Sheehan, an Irish clerical-savant, enjoyed a warm and notable friendship based largely on their exchange of letters from 1903, when they first met in Ireland, until 1913, the year of Sheehan's death. This correspondence illuminates what is otherwise a largely hidden and little appreciated side of the mind and faith of Justince Holmes. Sheehan was able to draw from his friend an awareness and s ympathy for human frailty and its counterpoint, faith in a divine plan of earthly things, thoughts and feelings that surfaced in letters to other of his friends. The importance of this edition of the Holmes-Sheehan letters rests in the first instance on this discovery. But Canon Sheehan wsa no mere foil for Holmes as they discussed with equal insight issues as varied as the economic man and the age of faith, of classical works, including Dante's Divine Comedy and Pascal's Pensees. Holmes discovered in the Canon a man of the most profound faith who remained open and tolerant of the beliefs and non-beliefs of others. He is better understood because of his affection for Sheehan, and, no less telling, because of the Canon's admiration for him. Gary J. Aichele in Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: Soldier, Scholar, Judge finds this set of letters perhaps the most unusualof any collection of Holmes correspondence published to date.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823215256
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1993
Edition description:	1
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.75(h) x (d)

About the Author

David H. Burton is Professor of History at St. Joseph's University. He is author of several biographies and books on American intellectual history including Political Ideas of Justice Holmes.

Editorial Reviews

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. still holds his place as the most interesting of American lawyers and judges. This correspondence with a Roman Catholic parish priest in Ireland is a slight record of ten years of unexpectedly sympathetic friendship.

Law Books in Review

A slim book containing the correspondence between Holmes and an Irish priest whom he met in 1903 and with whom he corresponded until Sheehan's death in 1913. The letters deal with the age-old issues of faith and doubt and bring forth a little recognized dimension of Holmes's thinking. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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