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1 Early Reading of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes 1880

handle is hein.beal/rguj0001 and id is 1 raw text is: The Early Reading of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes B EGINNING in 1865 and continuing through his seventy remain- ing years of life, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, recorded his daily reading in three notebooks which are now among his papers in the Harvard Law School Library. The earliest book is a small diary (3 by 3 inches) for i866 which contains an eight- page reading list and extensive notes of his impressions of England and the Continent during his visit there from May to September, 1866. The reading list is divided into two parts: books read in the year and a half before he went to Europe, and books read after his return, until the end of the year. The second book resembles the earlier one in appearance, though slightly larger (W by 5!/2 inches). The first part contains a personal diary of his social and professional activities during 1867, with only casual comments on his reading. The reading list itself, occupying some thirty pages at the end of the book, covers the years 1867 through 88o. Despite the limited space, Holmes has recorded approximately six hundred titles. His handwriting is small and meticulous, with a Yankee thrift of pen-stroke. Although the reading listed in the third book is not within the scope of this article, a note of its content will complete the description of the media through which a detailed listing of Holmes's reading during his mature life has been transmitted to us. 'The Black Book,' as it was known to Holmes's associates, is a folio-sized volume of one hundred fifty-nine pages. He began taking notes on his reading in July, 1876, but many of these notes, as he carefully mentions, were copied from memoranda made earlier. In the reading list of the 1867 diary, he men- tions that he 'got up' trial by jury. The most complete record of notes on his assiduous reading of this type is contained in the front part of the 'Black Book.' Beginning with the last page and working backwards towards the first page, Holmes recorded, in double col- umns, lists of books read from 188 1 through part of the year 1935 with its famous last entry, Thornton Wilder's Heaven's My Destination. 163

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