OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. Autograph Letter Signed, no place, 14 October 1898. 1 page, 6¾" x 5¼".

One of the most learned and influential jurists ever to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. began his career as a practicing attorney and legal scholar in Boston. At the date of this letter, he was a justice on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, where he sat from 1882 to 1902, acting as chief justice in his last three years. Holmes then went on to serve as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932.

Here Holmes turns down a dinner invitation from an unnamed doctor because of ill health. “I have been caved[?] in in my insides since I saw you,” he remarks, “and fear that I shall not be quite in shape for your dinner of Wednesday inasmuch as by C. Putnam's orders I have asked to be excused from Circuit on Tuesday – I am truly very sorry – but one isn't ill on purpose.” He has signed, “Sincerely Yours O W Holmes.”

The letter is in very good condition. $750.00

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