Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass (Deluxe Hardcover Edition) by Walt Whitman is a timeless celebration of life, nature, and the human spirit. This beautifully crafted edition features a debossed cover with elegant three-color foil embellishments, making it a stunning collector’s item for lovers of poetry and classic literature. First published in 1855, Leaves of Grass is a groundbreaking work that redefined American poetry. With its themes of democracy, individuality, and interconnectedness, Whitman’s verse captures the essence of the American experience and the universal joys of existence. This deluxe edition includes Whitman’s most famous poems, including “Song of Myself” and “I Sing the Body Electric,” making it a cherished addition to any library.

Several years in the making, McSweeney's presents a gorgeous cloth-bound, hardcover, two-book edition of Leaves of Grass, stuffed to the brim with a dazzling array of ephemera designed to deeply enhance readers' appreciation of Whitman's original masterpiece. In addition to the original, full-length work (presented precisely as Whitman desired), readers will find a second volume filled with his notebook and manuscript pages--generously made available to us and to all by the Walt Whitman Archive--totaling 344 pages of handwriting, cross outs, substitutions, and notes to both himself and his publishers. These materials provide crucial insight into how this magnificent work was created and was considered and reconsidered over the years by its author. Volume One The complete and unabridged 1891-2 deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass Volume Two Hundreds of pages of scanned handwritten drafts, manuscripts, notes, and more, made by Whitman Early drafts of Song of Myself, A Prairie Sunset, I Am the Poet of Sin, and more Handwritten edits and instructions to printers Correspondence between Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson Pencil sketches, cover designs, and drawings by Whitman A host of previously unpublished and abandoned poems And much more

'I spring from the pages into your arms' Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass stands as one of the most influential and innovative literary works of the last two hundred years. Widely credited as the originator of free verse in English, Whitman put forward a radical new language of the body, the nation, and same-sex love. After the book's initial publication in June 1855, Whitman revised and expanded the project a further seven times, with subsequent editions appearing at regular intervals until his death in 1892. His revisions to particular poems were often substantial, and the addition of new poems to each edition so extensive, that the books dimensions altered dramatically. This edition introduces Whitmans ongoing labour of revision and renewal his successive responses to the shattering years that encompassed the American Civil War and its aftermath. Beginning with the first edition of 1855, it moves chronologically, selecting and including the most substantial poems and clusters as Whitman first included them. In most cases, this means reprinting the often more politically and sexually daring beginning, rather than the revised end, of a particular poem's journey. The present edition thereby provides a portrait of a poet who attempted to reshape his project in tandem with some of the most tumultuous decades in American history, and who in the process altered forever the parameters and possibilities of poetry itself. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This compact edition, designed for use in undergraduate courses, collects a substantial selection of Whitman's poems. Highlights include the full text of the 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass, the 1855 text of the poem later titled 'Song of Myself,' the complete 'Live Oak, with Moss' sequence, numerous selections from the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass, and several samples of Whitman's early and late prose. The appendices include nineteenth-century reviews of Leaves of Grass, a selection of illustrations showing Whitman's design choices for various editions of the book, and numerous portraits of Whitman. This volume is one of a number of editions that have been drawn from the pages of the acclaimed Broadview Anthology of American Literature. The series is designed to make selections from the anthology available in a format convenient for use in a wide variety of contexts; each edition features an introduction and explanatory footnotes, and is designed to meet the needs of today's students. This edition departs from most other editions in the series in one important respect-its format. The large page size of the edition facilitates the reading of Whitman's long lines of verse.