Product Description

As Malcolm Cowley says in his introduction, the first edition of Leaves of Grass 'might be called the buried masterpiece of American writing', for it exhibits 'Whitman at his best, Whitman at his freshest in vision and boldest in language, Whitman transformed by a new experience.' Mr Cowley has taken the first edition from its narrow circulation among scholars, faithfully edited it, added his own introduction and Whitman's original introduction (which never appeared in any other edition during Whitman's life), and returned it to the common readership to whom the great poet really speaks.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42908 in Books
• Published on: 1986-07-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

About the Author
Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) is one of the greatest American poets. Leaves of Grass was published in 1855, which he added to and reshuffled throughout his life.

Customer Reviews

The 1855 Leaves of Grass
This edition is very different to the later _Leaves of Grass_. Whitman was one of those poets who go on expanding their book of poems throughout their life. (Rather like Baudelaire with his _Flowers of Evil_.) Some people consider the earlier edition superior to the later: certainly it seems more radical, with unhierarchical punctuation (frequent use of . . . .), no titles for the poems, no numbering of sections (Cowley inserts titles and numbering in brackers for ease of reference), and, as the book came to its first readers, no author's name, only an engraving (reproduced in this book) of Whitman in an open shirt and jaunitly cocked hat!

What can anyone have thought opening this unattributed book and turning to the first poem, the 60 pages of what later was called 'Song of Myself''? This immense, fantastic, multi-facated, boastful, ambitious, tender work seems to me a work of art that really justifies the often misused work "original". It's amazing to think that while England had Tennyson, America had

Walt Whitman, an America, one of the roughs, a kosmos,

Disorderly fleshy and sensual . . . . eating drinking and breeding,

No sentimentalist . . . . no stander above men and women or apart from them . . . . no more modest than immodest.

Whitman then shouts:

Unscrew the locks from the doors!

Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

Whitman represents America at what seems to me its best -- bold, immense, pioneering, multiracial, unsnobbish and unashamed to feel. The first edition is perhaps the best place to meet his poetry, as it isn't diluted by many of the later poems, some of which are very short -- more like epigrams (one-sided) than the many-sided long poems here. Whitman also revised his poems later on, adding "poetic" reversals of word-order and using a more "elevated" diction; whereas here the poems are vigorously colloquial ("I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world" he declares at one point).

Leaves Of Grass
I feel this book has the passion of life exploding in every word uttered by the poet. His unique style of transcending his thoughts to the readers liturally over powers my soul with sheer joy and love.

Absolutely wonderful!
This is poetry at it's very best, it is truly a life-changing experience. Leaves of grass is a book to treasure for a lifetime, a feast for the heart and mind every time you open it. Whitman's soul is in direct communion with yours as he weaves a tapestry of wonder and joy on every page. His words burn deep and enter into the very fibre of your being and I guarantee that once you are touched by walt's magic you will never be the same...