The Common Law

Let's begin with a couple of biographical details. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was a weird guy. Anyone who had grown up in the home of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., gone by the nickname "Wendy" as a lad, been for most of his life the smartest guy in any room by a fair margin, and been wounded thre......more

Valuable quotes: “Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.” “Man's mind, once stretched by an idea, never regains its original shape.” “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experiencing.” This book is an analysis of the law and the building of what may be......more

A wonderful exploration of the anomalies that appear in the common law. The book's title is a little misleading since unlike Blackstone, Holmes is not really writing about the law, he is writing about what he thinks are the fundamentals of its jurisprudence. For the reader who approaches this read u......more

This book is one of the three or four books that shaped modern America. It has been in print continuously since 1885. It is both a book of ideas and an artifact; it is written in Victorian American English, so it is not an easy read. I first read it in the summer of 1968 before starting law school.......more

Among justices of the Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. is of a tier that accompanied only by a few others, such as John Marshall and perhaps Hugo Black. Before this book was published, Holmes had already edited Chancellor Kent's Commentaries on American Law and written a number of useful ac......more