Lexington Books
Pages: 202
Trim: 6½ x 9⅜
978-0-7391-2034-7 • Hardback • November 2007 • $97.00 • (£75.00)
Jeffrey O'Connell is the Samuel H. McCoy, II Professor of Law at the University of Virginia. Thomas E. O'Connell is professor and former president at Bellevue (Washington) Community College.
Chapter 1 Introduction: The Friends and Their Friendships
Chapter 2 Chapter 1. From Doctor Johnson to Justice Holmes to Professor Laski
Chapter 3 Chapter 2. Johnson
Chapter 4 Chapter 3. Boswell
Chapter 5 Chapter 4. Holmes
Chapter 6 Chapter 5. Laski
Chapter 7 Chapter 6. Fathers and Females
Chapter 8 Chapter 7. The Olympians Compared
Chapter 9 Chapter 8. The Outsiders Compared
The O'Connells observe and compare two extraordinary relationships formed by wise elders with young admirers: are they paternal or fraternal or merely intellectual companionship? I am not sure, but it was entertaining to speculate.
— Paul Carrington, Duke University Law School
In the spirit of Plutarch'sParallel Lives, this witty and perceptive book delights by its analogies and contrasts between the two sophisticated and opinionated seers and their two gifted and resourceful juniors.
— John T. Noonan Jr., Senior Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Friendships across Ages is, on the whole, an entertaining and enlightening read....That said, Jeffrey O'Connell and Thomas E. O'Connell should be commended for their willingness to approach these literary and legal relationships from a unique perspective. Given the centrality of close, almost familial, relationships to this book, it is particularly fitting that it is authored by two brothers.
— 5/29/08, Brett W. Curry, Georgia Southern University; Journal of Law & Politics
It was an inspired decision to compare Boswell-Johnson with Laski-Holmes, great and important friendships that live in the prose of Boswell's Life of Johnson and in the Holmes-Laski letters. Samuel Johnson was central to the mind of England during the second half of the eighteenth century; Holmes central to the American mind during the second part of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth. Jeffrey and Thomas O'Connell bring all of this forward in their indispensable book.
— Jeffrey Hart, Dartmouth College