LEAVES OF GRASS

Publisher's original green cloth over bevelled boards, with titles in gilt to the spine. Signed by the author. Yellow endpapers. Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. With two, tissue guarded engraved portraits of the author, facing page 28 and 296. A very good copy, the binding square and firm with a little rubbing and bumping to the spine tips and corners. The cloth is clean, with just a few light marks. The contents, with the ownership inscription of 'Helen Webb' dated '1883' to the front endpaper, and a little spotting to the prelims, are otherwise clean throughout. An attractive example, in entirely original condition.

Signed by Walt Whitman in black ink on the title page. A scarce and desirable edition of Whitman's radically original and continuously evolving collection of free verse poetry celebrating the beauty of nature, the human body, and the shared experience of humanity through the perspective of the common individual. First self-published by Walt Whitman in 1855, the original edition contained just twelve poems. Over the next four decades, Whitman continually revised, expanded, and rearranged the collection, transforming it into his life's work. By the end of this process, Leaves of Grass comprised more than 400 poems, making it one of the most ambitious and enduring evolving literary projects in American literature. Rather than viewing each revision as a correction, Whitman regarded every new edition as a new stage in the book's life. As both his own experiences and America itself changed, 'Leaves of Grass' evolved alongside them, continually incorporating new poems, ideas, and perspectives. Twenty-six years after the publication of the first edition, the Boston publisher James R. Osgood & Co. invited Whitman to produce a sixth edition. He accepted on the condition that it would include his preferred arrangement of the poems, together with several additions, including the so-called "sexuality odes" that had previously provoked controversy. Shortly after publication, the Massachusetts District Attorney, Oliver Stevens, declared the work obscene and demanded that Osgood suspend its publication. Given the choice of removing the disputed passages or withdrawing the book, Whitman refused to make any alterations. As a result, his contract with the publisher was terminated, publication ceased, and the unbound sheets, printing plates, dies, and a payment of $100 were returned to him. Whitman immediately issued his own "Author's Edition", distinguished by a newly designed title page, and had a small number of copies bound for private distribution, as here. "This is a scarce and almost unknown issue; it is doubtful if more than one hundred copies were printed. The text and type is the same as that used in the Boston edition, the title page only being different. All copies were autographed, and it is probable that Whitman had these made for a few friends while waiting for the first Philadelphia edition" (Wells and Goldsmith, p.25). Later in 1882, Whitman reached an agreement with the Philadelphia publisher Rees Welsh to issue a new edition. By December, nearly 5,000 copies had been sold. Ironically, the attempted suppression of Leaves of Grass proved to be one of its greatest advertisements. Newspapers across the United States widely reported the ban, generating intense public interest and a dramatic increase in demand (Myerson A7.2.c3).