Sketch for The One-Hoss Shay, Frontispiece
Date1892
Artist
Howard Pyle
(American illustrator, 1853–1911)
Illustration CitationThe One Hoss Shay with its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & The Broomstick Train, by Oliver Wendell Holmes (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1892).
MediumGraphite on paper
Dimensionssheet: 8 11/16 × 5 9/16 in. (22.1 × 14.1 cm)
Credit LineGift of Willard S. Morse, 1925
Object number1925-277
On View
Not on viewClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextOliver Wendell Holmes was well known not just as a professor anatomy at Harvard but also as an author of light verse. The One Hoss Shay tells of a one hundred year old horse-drawn carriage that finally, and suddenly, breaks down. In How the Old Horse Won the Bet, a "poor forlorn old beast" amazes everyone with his speed in winning a race. The Broomstick Train attributes the flashing sparks of new electric trains to witches riding alongside them.
