The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table
By Oliver Wendell Holmes
Every man his own Boswell Table of Contents
- [A Note on the Text]
- [List of illustrations, 1858, 1902]
- Introduction, 1902
- To the Readers, 1882
- Preface to the New Edition, 1891
- The Autocrat's Autobiography, 1858
- The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, 1858, 1882, 1891, 1902
- Notes, 1882
List of Illustrations
- List of illustrations head
- Frontispiece: the one-hoss shay
- Introduction half-title
- The old gentleman opposite
- Chapter 1 half-title
- Over the social tea-cup
- The old gentleman who sits opposite
- The land-lady's daughter
- He is at home
- Chapter 2 half-title
- The schoolmistress
- The Derby day
- A sensitive author
- Chapter 3 half-title
- The young fellow called John
- The young fellow answering to the name of John
- The old man dreams
- Chapter 4 half-title
- A 'posy' for the little boy
- When the deep-breathing kine came home
- These fine ecstatic airs
- The poor relation
- Chapter 4 tail-piece: a mermaid
- Chapter 5 half-title
- His mother taught him to say many little pieces
- Calmed it down with easy melodies
- Asked if that was a statoo of her deceased infant
- Chapter 5 tail-piece
- Chapter 6 half-title
- The remarkably intelligent audience
- Our Benjamin Franklin
- Chapter 6 tail-piece
- Chapter 7 half-title
- So he stuck in some trees
- The last blossom
- Rub against the black sides of old wood-schooners
- You may take naps
- The manly art of self-defense among the clergy
- Chapter 7 tail-piece
- Chapter 8 half-title
- 'Port-chuck' and child wearing wide-brimmed hat
- An appreciating homage of the eyes
- Chapter 8 tail-piece
- Chapter 9 half-title
- Souls grow white, as well as cheeks in these holy duties
- Nothing would induce her to pass by him
- Love, of course
- Chapter 10 half-title
- Holding their green sun-shades over our heads
- My first walk with the schoolmistress
- Chapter 10 tail-piece
- Chapter 11 half-title
- The deacon plans his shay
- The deacon is upset
- If other boys make fun of them
- The old gentleman tips his hat
- Chapter 12 half-title
- The old arm-chair
- Chapter 12 end-piece
- End-piece, knight and angel
- Notes end-piece, lifted glass
- Manuscript note concerning Atlantic Monthly title page for second Autocrat, from Annie Fields
A Note on the Text
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table was printed in monthly installments, beginning with the first issue of Atlantic Monthly magazine, November, 1857, until October, 1858. Then it was issued in book form, with many editions, including notes by the author. As Holmes explains in the "Autobiography", he had first sketched the Autocrat in essays in New-England Magazine, November, 1831, and January, 1832. Two later books, the Professor (1859), and the Poet (1872), completed the Breakfast-Table series. They are more serious and philosophical and not reproduced here at this time, except for three poems also published elsewhere.
We use as copy-text for this online edition the first book edition of 1858, as printed in Boston by Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1861. In addition, for many illustrations and the notes added by the author, we employ the 1902 edition published by Houghton Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York, and J. M. Dent & Co., London, printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. This latter edition bears the copyright 1858, 1882, 1886, and 1891, by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
This 1902 edition has Anglicized spelling, so we have returned the text of later parts to the American spelling we suppose the original notes used. Otherwise we have tried to preserve the punctuation and layout of the original for this online edition. For reasons of space, we have chosen to make the poems and illustrations into separate files accessible by selecting links in square brackets inline in the text. The poems can thus be accessed in a different order than in the book. Notes at the end of verse pages are usually from Horace Scudder, editor of the Cambridge Edition of the Complete Poetical Works, 1895, whose text we follow for most of the poems.
Illustrations are signed, by H. M. Brock in the 1902 edition, and F. Coppins (spelling?) in the 1861 edition. They are all black-on-white engravings in GIF89a format, almost all original size, and almost all are smaller than 34KBytes and so should not take a long time to load. Note that we give links to illustrations from both editions inline in the same text here, in approximately the same order as in the originals; obviously, then, we strictly reproduce neither printed text.
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