Leaves of Grass is the life work of Walt Whitman, a collection of poems that he first published at his own expense in 1855 and kept expanding and revising until his death in 1892. In long lines of free verse, it celebrates the self, the body, democracy, work and the variety of America, and it transformed American poetry.
The 1855 edition
The first edition, published in Brooklyn in July 1855, contained twelve untitled poems and a long prose preface. The author's name did not appear on the title page; instead, the frontispiece showed an engraving of a bearded man in working clothes, his shirt open at the neck.
The opening poem, later titled Song of Myself, presents a speaker who identifies with all men and women of every condition, and names himself within the poem, Walt Whitman, as an ordinary American.
A book that kept growing
Whitman published new editions in 1856, 1860, 1867, 1871–72, 1881–82 and 1891–92, adding new poems, regrouping the old ones into sections and changing titles and lines. The collection grew from twelve poems to around four hundred.
During the Civil War he worked as a volunteer nurse in Washington hospitals; his war poems, Drum-Taps, and his elegies for Abraham Lincoln, including O Captain! My Captain!, were incorporated into later editions.
Scandal and recognition
The frankness of some poems about the body and sexuality shocked many readers, and Whitman lost a government job in 1865 when his superior found an annotated copy of the book. Others recognised in him a new voice; the English poet Tennyson corresponded with him, and Swinburne addressed a poem to him.
The last edition, prepared as Whitman lay ill in Camden, New Jersey, is known as the deathbed edition. His long free-verse lines influenced poets from Ezra Pound to Allen Ginsberg, and poets around the world, from Fernando Pessoa to Pablo Neruda.
Anecdotes
Emerson's letter on the spine
In July 1855 Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to Whitman to greet him at the beginning of a great career. Without asking permission, Whitman had the phrase printed in gold on the spine of the 1856 edition, signed with Emerson's name, and the letter published in a newspaper.
Banned in Boston
In 1882 the district attorney of Boston threatened to prosecute the publishers of the new edition for obscenity, and they withdrew it. Whitman found a publisher in Philadelphia, and the publicity made the book sell better than ever.
Frequently asked questions
When was Leaves of Grass first published?
In July 1855, at Whitman's expense, in Brooklyn, New York.
How many editions of Leaves of Grass are there?
Whitman published six or nine editions, depending on how they are counted, from 1855 to the deathbed edition of 1891–92.
Is Leaves of Grass written in free verse?
Yes. Whitman's long, unrhymed lines with irregular rhythms made him one of the founders of modern free verse.