Walt Whitman

This is the fifth volume of a new series of publications by Delphi Classics, the best-selling publisher of classical works. Many poetry collections are often poorly formatted and difficult to read on eReaders. The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature’s finest poets, with superior formatting. This volume presents the complete poetical works of Walt Whitman, with beautiful illustrations and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version: 1)* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Whitman’s life and works* Concise introductions to the poetry and other works* Images of how the poetry books were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts* Excellent formatting of the poems* Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry* Easily locate the poems you want to read* Includes two collections of Whitman’s letters – spend hours exploring the poet’s personal correspondence* Also includes Whitman’s scarce novel FRANKLIN EVANS, appearing here for the first time in digital print* Features the complete prose works* Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres CONTENTS: The Poetry CollectionsLEAVES OF GRASS, 1855LEAVES OF GRASS, 1892OLD AGE ECHOESUNCOLLECTED AND REJECTED POEMS The PoemsLIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDERLIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER The NovelFRANKLIN EVANS Other Prose WorksLIST OF PROSE WORKS The LettersTHE WOUND DRESSERTHE LETTERS OF ANNE GILCHRIST AND WALT WHITMAN

Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. When Leaves of Grass was first published in 1855 as a slim tract of twelve untitled poems, Walt Whitman was still an unknown. But his self-published volume soon became a landmark of poetry, introducing the world to a new and uniquely American form. The "father of free verse," Whitman drew upon the cadence of simple, even idiomatic speech to "sing" such themes as democracy, sexuality, and frank autobiography.Throughout his prolific writing career, Whitman continually revised his work and expanded Leaves of Grass, which went through nine, substantively different editions, culminating in the final, authoritative "Death-bed Edition." Now the original 1855 version and the "Death-bed Edition" of 1892 have been brought together in a single volume, allowing the reader to experience the total scope of Whitman's genius, which produced love lyrics, visionary musings, glimpses of nightmare and ecstasy, celebrations of the human body and spirit, and poems of loneliness, loss, and mourning. Alive with the mythical strength and vitality that epitomized the American experience in the nineteenth century, Leaves of Grass continues to inspire, uplift, and unite those who read it. Karen Karbiener received a Ph.D. from Columbia University and currently teaches at New York University. She also wrote the introduction and notes for the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Frankenstein.

EDITORIAL REVIEW: Throughout his life, Walt Whitman continually revised and re-released *Leaves of Grass*. He added and deleted words, emended lines, divided poems, dropped and created titles, and shifted the order of poems. **Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems** includes all the variants that Whitman ever published, from the collection's first appearance in 1855 through the posthumous "Old Age Echoes" annex printed in 1897. Each edition was unique, with its own character and emphasis, and the **Textual Variorum** enables scholars to follow the development of both the individual poems and the work as a whole. Volume I contains introductory material, including a chronology of the poems and a summary of all the editions and annexes, along with the poems from 1855 and 1856. Volume II includes the poems from 1860 through 1867, including the first appearance of "When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd" and "O Captain! my Captain!" Volume III features the poems 1870-1891, plus the "Old Ages Annex" and an index to the three-volume set.

In his unconventional verse, Walt Whitman spoke in a powerful, sensual, oratorical, and inspiring voice. His most famous work, Leaves of Grass, was a long-term project that the poet compared to the building of a cathedral or the slow growth of a tree. During his lifetime, from 1819 to 1892, it went through nine editions. Today it is regarded as a landmark of American literature. This volume contains 24 poems from Leaves of Grass, offering a generous sampling of Whitman's best and most representative verses. Featured works include "I Hear America Singing," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Song of the Open Road," "Out of Cradle Endlessly Rocking," "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," and "O Captain! My Captain!"—all reprinted from an authoritative text.

Considered by many to be the quintessential American poet, Walt Whitman (1819–92) exerted a profound influence on all the American poets who came after him. And it was with this inspired, oceanic medley, "Song of Myself" (which in the first editions of Leaves of Grass was still nameless), that this great poet first made himself known to the world. Readers familiar with the later, more widely published versions of Leaves of Grass will find this first version of "Song of Myself" new, surprising, and often superior to the later versions — and exhilarating in the freshness of its vision. In this inexpensive edition, this enormously influential work will especially delight students, teachers, and any devotee of Walt Whitman.

Whitman’s uniquely revealing impressions of the people, places, and events of his time—with a brilliant new introduction by Leslie Jamison, author of the bestselling The Empathy Exams. One of the most creative and individual poets America has produced, Walt Whitman was also a prolific diarist, note-taker, and essayist whose intimate observations and reflections have profoundly deepened understanding of nineteenth-century American life. Specimen Days and Collect, first published in 1882, is a choice collection of Whitman’s uniquely revealing impressions of the people, places, and events of his time, principally the era of the Civil War and its aftermath. On page after page, a vast panorama of American life unfolds, and with it rare glimpse of Whitman as poet, empathetic observer, and romantic wanderer. From his years as a wartime nurse in Washington, D.C., come touching glimpses of the dead and dying in military hospitals, memories of Abraham Lincoln, and vivid impressions of the nation’s capital in a time of great crisis. Whitman’s travel yields memorable recollections of Boston, the Hudson Valley, a walk through Central Park, Niagara Falls, the City of Denver, and more. Along with the famed essay “Democratic Vistas,” there are scenes from the poet’s childhood, touching tributes to songbirds, wildflowers, friendship and freedom; impressions of the music of Beethoven, reflections on a last visit to Emerson, the deaths of Lincoln and Longfellow and the painful process of aging. Deeply felt and vividly expressed, Specimen Days and Collect is a richly rewarding experience, a rare excursion into the mind and heard of one of America’s greatest poets—and the America his poetry so richly commemorated.

A fully unexpurgated collection that restores the sexual vitality and subversive flair suppressed by Whitman himself in later editions of Leaves of Grass. A century after his death, Whitman is still celebrated as America's greatest poet. In this startling new edition of his work, Whitman biographer Gary Schmidgall presents over 200 poems in their original pristine form, in the chronological order in which they were written, with Whitman's original punctuation. Included in this volume are facsimiles of Whitman's original manuscripts, contemporary - and generally blistering - reviews of Whitman's poetry (not surprisingly Henry James hated it), and early pre-Leaves of Grass poems that return us to the physical Whitman, rejoicing - sometimes graphically - in homoerotic love. Unlike the many other available editions, all drawn from the final authorized or "deathbed" Leaves of Grass, this collection focuses on the exuberant poems Whitman wrote during the creative and sexual prime of his life, roughly between l853 and l860. These poems are faithfully presented as Whitman first gave them to the world - fearless, explicit and uncompromised - before he transformed himself into America's respectable, mainstream Good Gray Poet through 30 years of revision, self-censorship and suppression. Whitman admitted that his later poetry lacked the "ecstasy of statement" of his early verse. Revealing that ecstasy for the first time, this edition makes possible a major reappraisal of our nation first great poet.