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Authors: Walt Whitman

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Leaves of Grass
was published anonymously in 1855.
Throughout his life, Whitman revised Leaves of Grass and regularly issued
new editions. The final authorized ninth, or “Death-bed,”
edition was published in 1891-1892.
 
Published by Barnes & Noble Classics in 2004 with new Introduction,
Notes, Biography, Chronology, Publication Information, Inspired By,
Comments & Questions, For Further Reading, and Index.
 
Introduction, Notes, Publishing Information, and For Further Reading
Copyright © 2004 by Karen Karbiener.
 
Note on Walt Whitman, The World of Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass,
Inspired by Leaves of Grass, Comments & Questions, and Index
Copyright © 2004 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
 
Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics
colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.
 
Leaves of Grass
ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-083-9
ISBN-10: 1-59308-083-2
eISBN : 978-1-411-43252-9
LC Control Number 2004102191
 
Produced and published in conjunction with
Fine Creative Media, Inc.
322 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10001
 
Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher
 
Printed in the United States of America
QM
5 7 9 10 8 6 4
WALT WHITMAN
Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, on a farm near West Hills, New York, on Long Island. In 1823, Walter Senior moved his growing family to Brooklyn, where he worked as a carpenter and introduced Walt to freethinkers and reformers like the Quaker preacher Elias Hicks and women’s rights activist Frances Wright. One of Whitman’s most vivid childhood memories was of being hoisted onto the shoulders of General Lafayette during a visit the Revolutionary War hero made to New York.
While many notable American figures of the mid-nineteenth century, such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne, were the privileged sons of well-established families, Whitman was, at least on the basis of his humble origins, indeed a man of the people. His mother, Louisa Van Velsor, an unfailing supporter of her literary-minded son, was barely literate; of the seven Whitman offspring who survived infancy, Eddy was mentally disabled, Jesse spent much of his life in an insane asylum, Andrew died young of alcoholism and tuberculosis, and Hannah married an abusive man who repeatedly beat her. Whitman was confronted with these often sordid family matters through much of his adult life.
Walt dropped out of school when he was eleven, though he continued to read widely and soon entered the newspaper business as a printer’s apprentice. Before long he was editing and writing for some of the most popular newspapers of the day. He reported on the crimes, fires, civic achievements, and other events that shaped rapidly growing New York in the 1830s and 1840s; he reviewed concerts, attended operas, and socialized with other writers and artists; and, always observing, notebook in hand, he walked the streets of the city that had fueled his imagination since his youth and inspired such poems as “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.”
Whitman came onto the literary scene quietly. The First Edition of
Leaves of Grass
received little notice when it appeared in 1855, though such distinguished American men of letters as Ralph Waldo Emerson recognized the twelve poems included in the slim volume, with Whitman’s photo on the frontispiece, as a major literary achievement. Whitman spent the rest of his life revising and editing
Leaves of Grass
, incorporating new collections of poems into subsequent editions of his masterpiece. Though he more or less gave up journalism by the early 1860s
,
he continued to observe with a reporter’s eye, working his experiences into his poetry. The often disturbing wartime poems he included in such collections as
Drum-Taps
and
Sequel
to
Drum-Taps
took root in the visits he made to soldiers in Washington, D.C., hospitals during the Civil War. His romantic relationships also worked their way into his poetry, especially those in his “Calamus” collection, making Whitman one of the first American poets to openly address homosexuality.
Many of Whitman’s contemporaries were shocked by
Leaves of Grass,
and in 1882 a Boston printing was banned when the work was declared immoral. Even so, the poet continued to gain a reputation in America and, even more so, in Britain. After suffering a stroke in 1873, Whitman moved from Washington to Camden, New Jersey, where he spent the greater part of his remaining days writing, overseeing new editions of
Leaves of Grass,
and receiving visitors. Just ten days after writing his last poem, “A Thought of Columbus,” Walt Whitman died on March 26, 1892.
THE WORLD OF WALT WHITMAN AND
LEAVES OF GRASS
1819
Walter Whitman is born on May 31 in West Hills, Long Is land, the second of nine children of Louisa Van Velsor and Walter Whitman, a carpenter. Herman Melville is also born this year. “Ode to a Nightingale,” by John Keats, appears.
1823
The senior Whitman moves his family to Brooklyn, anticipat ing that a building boom will create a demand for carpenters.
1830
Young Walt leaves school, works as an office boy, and con tinues his education through reading.
1831
Whitman takes an apprenticeship at the printing office of the
Long Island Patriot.
1832
Whitman moves to the printing office of the
Long Island Star,
Brooklyn’s leading newspaper.
1836
He begins teaching school in East Norwich, Long Island, the first of many such positions he will take over the next several years.
1838
Whitman founds a weekly newspaper, the
Long Islander.
1840
He campaigns for presidential candidate Martin Van Buren.
1841
The
Democratic Review
publishes some of Whitman’s prose and verse.
1842
The
New
World, a Manhattan newspaper, publishes Whit man’s sentimental temperance novel,
Franklin Evans; or The Inebriate.
1846
After several years spent
writing
for several Manhattan and Brooklyn newspapers, Whitman begins a two-year stint as editor of the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
He begins attending opera, a passion that will continue for decades. Whitman sits for the first of what will be more than 130 photographs over the course of his lifetime (he was the most pho tographed nineteenth-century writer after Mark Twain).
1848
Whitman becomes editor of the
New Orleans Daily Cres
cent
but soon returns north to found the
Brooklyn Freeman.
1850- 1855
These are crucial yet mysterious years in the development of Whitman’s poetics. He works intermittently as a freelance journalist, builds and sells houses in Brooklyn, and lives with his family. The details of how he prepares for and writes his great work
Leaves of Grass
remain unknown.
1855
Whitman publishes
Leaves of Grass
on July 4 to little notice. His father dies seven days later. Whitman sends a copy of
Leaves
to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who replies with a con gratulatory letter.
1856
In September, Whitman publishes the second edition of
Leaves of Grass
, with added poems and Emerson’s letter. Henry David Thoreau visits Whitman at his home.
1857
Whitman returns to journalism as the editor of the
Brooklyn Daily Times.
1859
Dismissed from the
Times
, Whitman prepares another edition of
Leaves of Grass.
He begins to frequent Pfaff‘s, a restaurant that is the epicenter of New York bohemian cul ture. There he meets Fred Vaughan, a stage driver; the rela tionship with Vaughan probably inspires some of Whitman’s homoerotic poetry.
1861
The American Civil War begins.
1862
Whitman travels to Fredericksburg, Virginia, to search for his brother George, who is reported missing in battle and turns up wounded.
1863
Whitman settles in Washington, D.C., where he works as a clerk for the Army Paymaster’s Office and makes lifelong friends of John Burroughs and William D. O’Connor, both writers. In his spare time, he visits wounded soldiers in the capital’s overflowing hospitals.
1864
Family matters, including the recent death of his brother Andrew and the mental deterioration of his brother Jesse, force Whitman to return to Brooklyn temporarily.
1865
The year the Civil War ends is a significant one for Whit man. Returning to Washington, he becomes a clerk in the Indian Bureau of the Department of the Interior but is dis missed within six months on grounds of alleged obscenity in Leaves of Grass. He meets Peter Doyle, an eighteen-year-old former Confederate soldier, and the men begin a long-term romantic relationship. Whitman publishes
Drum-Taps,
his book of Civil War poetry, and
Sequel to Drum-Taps,
which contains “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom‘d,” an elegy to Abraham Lincoln, slain in April of this year.
1866
William O’Connor publishes
The Good Gray Poet,
a pamphlet that defends the poet against his firing and charges of obscenity.
1867
Another edition of
Leaves
o
f Grass
, including
Drum-Taps
and other Civil War poems, is published. John Burroughs publishes
Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person,
the first biography of the poet.
1868
The first foreign edition of Whitman’s poems is published in England, where Whitman attracts a sizable following.
1871
Democratic Vistas, Passage to India
, and the Fifth Edition of
Leaves of
Grass are published.
1873
On January 23 a paralytic stroke leaves Whitman partially disabled, and his mother dies on May 23. Whitman moves to the home of his brother George in Camden, New Jersey.
1876
Whitman publishes
Two Rivulets
and a “Centennial” Edi tion of
Leaves of Grass
. He develops a close relationship with Harry Stafford, an eighteen-year-old errand boy.
1879
After traveling as far west as Denver, Whitman falls ill and stops in St. Louis to stay with his brother Jeff.
1880
Whitman returns to Camden, then travels to Ontario to spend the summer with Richard Maurice Bucke, a physi cian who becomes a lifelong friend and will be Whitman’s biographer.
1882
Facing criminal obscenity charges, Boston publisher James Osgood ceases distribution of a new edition of
Leaves of Grass.
The edition is published in Philadelphia, as is the autobiographical
Specimen Days and Collect.
Oscar Wilde pays two visits to Whitman and sends him an enlarged pho tographic portrait. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson die.
1883
Richard Maurice Bucke publishes his biography,
Walt Whitman.
1884
Whitman purchases a house at 328 Mickle Street in Cam den, New Jersey, where he receives his many friends. A daily visitor is Horace Traubel, Whitman’s so-called “Spirit Child,” who will recount his conversations with the poet in his multi-volume
With Walt Whitman in Camden
and who will be one of the executors of the poet’s estate.
1887
Whitman draws large crowds to a lecture in New York City and is the subject of a portrait by Thomas Eakins.
1888
In June, Whitman suffers another stroke.
November Boughs,
a collection of new poems and previously published prose pieces, appears.
1889
Whitman is enthralled by the glow of the electric street lamp installed on Mickle Street.
1890
Weary of English poet and essayist John Addington Symonds’s incessant inquiries about the homosexual content of the “Calamus” poems, Whitman fabricates the story that he is the father of six illegitimate children.
1891
Whitman publishes
Good-Bye My Fancy
, a collection of prose and verse, and prepares the final, “Death-bed” Edition of
Leaves of Grass.
Herman Melville dies.
1892
Whitman dies on March 26 and is buried in Camden’s Harleigh Cemetery. His last, spoken words are to his nurse, Warry Fritzinger: “Warry, shift.”
BOOK: Leaves of Grass First and Death-Bed Editions
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