This book is entitled "The Iron Gate, And Other Poems", by Oliver Wendell Holmes, published by Houghton Mifflin in Boston in 1880. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809 - 1894) was an American physician, poet, and polymath based in Boston. Considered one of the Fireside poets, he was acclaimed by his peers as one of the best writers of the day. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (published in 1858), and many of his works were published in The Atlantic Monthly, a magazine that he named. The Fireside poets included William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and John Greenleaf Whittier, and this elite Boston literary group was characterized by family-friendly writing people could enjoy around the fireplace. He was the father of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who would become a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States, and around 1860 he invented the American stereoscope - and rather than patenting the hand stereopticon and profiting from its success, he gave the idea away. (And for what it's worth, a polymath is an individual whose knowledge spans a number of subjects and draws on complex bodies of knowledge to solve problems.)The book is bound in a gray-green binding, with gilt lettering on the spine, double gilt-ruled borders with gilt titles inside the borders, bevelled edges, a small bookplate of James Harrington on decorated endpapers, a frontis engraving of the author with a protective tissue guard, the title page, the copyright page is dated 1880, which makes the book a first edition, then a Contents page, and 82 pages of text. See BAL 8949.The book is 8vo. and measures 7 3/4 x 5 1/8 in. wide, with a tight binding and clean pages and text. The spine has light loss and wear at the crown and light wear at the heel, the tips have light rubbing and are slightly turned in. An uncommon poetry book by one of the Fireside poets. #25 #7038