The Last Leaf. Poem. By Oliver Wendell Holmes.

HOLMES, Oliver Wendell.

$4,000.00

Item Number: 138225

Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin & Co. The Riverside Press, 1886.

First edition of Holmes’ classic poem. Folio, original publisher’s half vellum with gilt titles and tooling to the spine and panels, top edge gilt, illustrated by George Wharton Edwards and F. Hopkinson Smith. Presentation copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper to Ulysses S. Grant’s daughter Nellie Grant, “Oliver Wendell Holmes for Miss Nellie Grant” and additionally signed and inscribed by him on the second blank with a stanza from The Last Leaf, “And if I should live to be the The Last Leaf upon the tree in the Spring, Let them smile as I do now At the old forsaken bough Where I cling. Oliver Wendell Holmes Boston December 21st 1885.” Soon after South Carolina’s secession from the Union in 1861 and the start of the Civil War, Oliver Wendell Holmes began publishing pieces—the first of which was the patriotic song “A Voice of the Loyal North”—in support of the Union cause. Although he had previously criticized the abolitionists, deeming them traitorous, his main concern was for the preservation of the Union. Less than a month before Johnson issued a proclamation that declaring the end of the War, Holmes was approached by the Semi-Centennial Committee of the New England Society to write a poem honoring Ulysses S. Grant, the guest of honor at the grand opening of a theater on New York City’s Fifth Avenue on July 31, 1865. In response, he wrote the poem “Dinner with General Grant” which remains one of the great tributes to Grant as Commanding General of the Union Army. Nellie Grant was the third child and only daughter of Grant and his wife Lady Julia Grant. At the age of 16, Nellie was sent abroad to England by President Grant, and was received by Queen Victoria and she attracted much attention as a teenager growing up in the White House. In near fine condition.

Grouped among the fireside poets, American physician and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was acclaimed by his peers as one of the best writers of the day. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). He was also an important medical reformer. In addition to his work as an author and poet, Holmes also served as a physician, professor, lecturer, inventor, and, although he never practiced it, he received formal training in law.