Description

Franklin Library leather edition of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," Illustrated by Liam Roberts, a Limited edition, one of the 100 GREATEST MASTERPIECES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE series, published in 1982. Bound in hunter green leather, the book has hunter green French moire silk end leaves, hubbed spine, a satin book marker, acid-free paper, Symth-sewn binding, gold gilding on three edges--- in near FINE condition---except for 'minor fading' on edges of moire silk. Walter Whitman, who lived from 1819-1892, was born on Long Island, New York. When Whitman published "Leaves of Grass," in 1855, the book did not sell well, but RALPH WALDO EMERSON praised the "Leaves" as the most original poem he had read in years. Whitman tried a variety of occupations: printing, public school teaching, handyman, etc. He was passionately opposed to slavery, but refused to fight in the Civil War because he was a pacifist. His "Drum Tap" poems about the Civil War are the finest in American Literature. Whitman adored Abraham Lincoln and wrote "O, Captain, My Captain," "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," "Hushed Be the Camps To-Day," and others as tributes to the assassinated 16th President of the U.S. Whitman is the urban poem with many poems praising his native Manhattan, namely "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "Paumanok," and "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking." Other poems include: "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Come, said my soul," "One's-Self I Sing," "Starting from Paumanok," "A Woman Waits for Me," "For You O Democracy," "When I Heard at the Close of the Day," "Song of the Redwood-Tree," "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing," "Poets to Come," “ Cavalry Crossing a Ford," "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," "Song of the Broad-Axe, "Pioneers! O Pioneers!," "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer," "Calamus," "Song of the Open road,” “ A Noiseless Patient Spider," "To a Common Prostitute," and "One's-Self I Sing." Whitman first published his verse---at his own expense---as LEAVES OF GRASS in 1855. . Whitman achieved a measure of success during his lifetime. Subjects that were taboo to others were Whitman's domain: "Through the forbidden voices/Voices of sex and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil,/ Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd." In 1884, Whitman bought his first house on Mickle Street in Camden, New Jersey. He is buried in Harleigh Cemetery in Camden. 512 pages. I offer Combined shipping.