The first edition of Whitman’s major poetic work was published in 1855 at his own expense, and bore only his image—no name. From the first to the last of the six editions of "Leaves of Grass," the ...

I first made acquaintance with Whitman's writings when a newspaper notice of the earliest edition of Leaves of Grass reached me, in Paris, in the autumn of 1855. It was the most exhilarating piece ...

For historians, the evolution of the book through different editions offers evidence of the author's shifting concerns. In fact, Leaves of Grass may be comparable to Rembrandt's dozens of self ...

In 1855 he published the first edition of Leaves of Grass, opening with an uncanny, world-changing poem, “Song of Myself.” Leaves of Grass was scandalously original in both form and content.

Critic David Reynolds has said: “Lincoln, as Whitman saw him, was virtually the living embodiment of the ‘I’ of Leaves of Grass. …If, as Whitman said, Leaves of Grass and the war were one, they ...

“But for the opera, I could never have written Leaves of Grass.” —Walt Whitman From “Proud Music of the Storm” to “Italian Music in Dakota,” the influence of opera on Whitman’s work is more than ...