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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
At a Boston breakfast table, a joke can open a question about faith, the mind, or growing old.
In The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, Oliver Wendell Holmes gathers lodgers around meals in a Boston boarding house. The old Autocrat leads the talk, now older and more watchful. Each person brings a manner and a point of view. Conversation wanders from medicine to belief, with wit making room for serious thought.
Holmes brings a physician’s eye and a poet’s ear to questions that touch daily life. How closely do thought and feeling depend on the body? What happens when faith becomes harsh? His breakfast-table talk explores language, memory, and age, offering the company of a sharp, kind mind rather than a brisk argument or a driving plot.
What you’ll discover
- Conversation as a way of thinking Join a table where different points of view give familiar questions fresh life.
- The body behind the mind Explore Holmes’s recurring idea that thought, feeling, and character rest on the body.
- Faith without harshness Follow his resistance to religious severity and his search for a kinder faith.
- Science beside poetry Discover how a physician and poet gives both ways of thinking a place.
- Wit, words, and memory Enjoy puns and odd phrases alongside reflections on age and the small moments that endure.
Who will love it
Readers who love warm, rambling talk, gentle humor and sharp portraits of eccentric people, and who enjoy poems tucked inside essays.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Talking helps thoughts take shape
- A home lives in remembered details
- Love reaches beyond a remembered form
- Wide thinkers need the specialist
- A frightening name can magnify trouble
- Honest advice should never be cruel
- The stars give loneliness a voice
- Free inquiry needs gentle manners
- Conversation makes room for human company
Who’s who
- The PoetThe narrator, who writes down the table talk, loves words and memories, and quietly hopes his friends find happiness.
- The MasterA retired college official with round spectacles who studies the Order of Things and delivers opinions like imperial edicts.
- The LandladyA warm, talkative widow who runs the boardinghouse, adores her son, and weeps easily over old troubles.
- The ScarabeeA dry, stooped beetle specialist who wants to settle whether a bee parasite is the larva of the Meloe.
- ScheherazadeThe Young Girl, who writes a new serial story every week for a newspaper and longs for kindness.
- The Young AstronomerA pale stargazer in a private observatory who writes questioning verses about fame, faith and loneliness.
- The LadyA gentlewoman fallen on hard times who keeps to herself, befriends the Young Girl, and treasures a simple faith.
- That BoyA gap-toothed child with a popgun who is always wedged between chairs and always ready to fire.
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The Poet at the Breakfast-Table
by Oliver Wendell Holmes · 1872
A poet, a beetle scholar, a young stargazer and a boy with a popgun share one boardinghouse table.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
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“On occasions of social dignity few men have ever surpassed Dr. Holmes in grace of compliment and perfection of easy ceremony.”
In short
Picture a long table in a Boston boardinghouse, set for breakfast. An old man with round spectacles lays down the law on beetles, stars and the Order of Things, while a small boy with a popgun waits to stop him mid-sentence.
The Poet at the Breakfast-Table at a glance
- Reading time
- About 7 h5 h 35 min fast, 8 h 20 min slow
- Length
- 100,100 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1872by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Talk to discover what you think
The book begins with a small joke about a man interviewing himself. The old man says talking helps him discover his thoughts, much as a schoolboy empties his pockets to inspect them.
He gives the idea odd pictures. An old thought is squeezed out of shape by the others packed around it, like a raisin that was once a grape. Some doubts breed in the dark like the blind fish of Mammoth Cave.
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Which edition is right for me
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- 15-minute summary
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Details
- First published
- 1872
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 7 h 55 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Holmes, Oliver Wendell. The Poet at the Breakfast-Table. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-poet-at-the-breakfast-table.
Holmes, O. W. (2026). The poet at the breakfast-table. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-poet-at-the-breakfast-table (Original work published 1872)
Holmes, Oliver Wendell. The Poet at the Breakfast-Table. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-poet-at-the-breakfast-table.
@book{holmes2026poet,
author = {Holmes, Oliver Wendell},
title = {The Poet at the Breakfast-Table},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-poet-at-the-breakfast-table},
note = {First published 1872}
}
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What is The Poet at the Breakfast-Table about?
It follows a poet and his fellow boarders at a Boston breakfast table. Conversations on science, poetry, medicine and faith run through the book, with poems, letters and a gentle romance among the guests.
Who is the Master in The Poet at the Breakfast-Table?
The Master is a retired college official with large round spectacles. He studies the Order of Things, talks at length, and says he is open to every question. He is the book's chief talker.
What does the popgun mean in the book?
That Boy fires an elder-branch popgun, sometimes checking a long-winded speaker and sometimes interrupting at the wrong moment. It works as a running joke and a check on the talk, and the Poet keeps wondering who is giving the boy his cues.
The author
Oliver Wendell Holmes
1809–1894 · American poet and physician
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809–1894) was an American physician, poet, and novelist. He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and died in Boston. He taught medicine at Harvard. His books include The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858), Elsie Venner (1861), and The Poet at the Breakfast-Table (1872).
“Talk to discover what you think.”
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