On a December day in 1882, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., at forty-one, was at lunch in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a colleague on the faculty of Harvard Law School. He had recently published a book, The Common Law. It was the culmination of fifteen years of effort, including numerous scholarly essays and a grueling revision of the leading American legal encyclopedia, Kent's Commentaries on American Law. His scholarship had been mixed with work as a private lawyer, half of them bachelor years of evening and weekend conversation with friends such as the James brothers, William and Henry, and a long visit to England in 1866. His wedding to Fanny Dixwell in June 1872 was curtly noted along with new editorial responsibilities in a diary devoted mainly to his reading and writing. (“June 17. Married[.] sole editor of Law Rev. July no. et seq.”).

The book had gained the serious attention Holmes longed for. It had received highly respectful reviews by American journals, albeit traced with caution.