Holmes was born August 29, 1809, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard in 1830, and after a year spent studying law, decided to follow his wishes and pursue a career in medicine. He went to France to study at the Ecole de Medicine in Paris, considered one of the finest medical schools of its day. Holmes returned to the United States in 1835 and the following year received his medical degree from theHarvardMedical School. On June 15, 1840 he married Amelia Jackson and established a practice in Boston. During this time he was also a prolific writer of medical essays, a researcher, a professor at Harvard, a practicing physician, and a poet.

Holmes also became a member of the intellectual elite of Boston society, a group known as the Boston Brahmins, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, among others. Holmes named the new literary magazine...