"_Camerado, this is no book;
Who touches this touches a man._"
Walt Whitman's relation to his work was more personal than that of most
poets. He was, in a larger sense, a man of one book, and this book,
issued and reissued at various periods of the poet's life, was, at each
issuance, the latest expression of his development. The infinite care he
gave to his work; the continual study of each poem resulted in changes
in each edition. The book literally grew with the man and in the present
authorized edition of today we have his final and complete utterance.
Whitman's early fugitive work presents to the student a curious anomaly.
It gives no intimation of the great nature that later produced Leaves of
Grass and Democratic Vistas. In quality it was beneath the standards of
the nickle-dreadfuls of yesterday. Bearing such titles as "One Wicked
Impulse"; "Revenge and Requital, Tale of a Murderer Escaped"; "The
Angel of Tears"; (many of them are in the Prose Works) they appealed to
a class to whom thought was anathema and reading solely a pastime. They
are didactic to the extreme, presenting the horrible results of sin and
the corresponding rewards of virtue. Their value as literature, however,
does not come within the province of the bibliographer.
The care Whitman bestowed upon his writings was carried to the
mechanical production of his books. Each edition was manufactured under
his supervision and when completed represented the latest and highest
achievements in commercial bookmaking. Further, he took such an intense
personal interest in the sale of his books that he invariably knew at
all times the number of copies sold and the number on hand.
The first edition comprised three distinct variations. The first of
these, in paper wrappers, are undoubtedly the result of Whitman's
impatience at the delays of the binder. Considering that he had a press
at his disposal, it is not assuming too much to suggest that while
awaiting deliveries from the binder he printed the jackets himself for
immediate use. This is the only way to account for the existence of the
paper copies. Further proof that this contention is correct is that each
copy bears an inscription in Whitman's holograph.
Though Whitman insisted that "the entire edition sold readily" there is
little doubt he meant circulated. In fact, they were circulated so
rapidly a new edition was required within ten months. This second
edition was a dumpy sexto-decimo of nearly four hundred pages. Twenty
new poems were added, one of the earlier poems was dropped and all were
retouched. This edition did sell rapidly and only fear of public
criticism prevented the publishers from reissuing the book. The failure
to find a firm to stand sponsor for his book discouraged Whitman to the
extent of planning to go West and pioneer. His plans for this venture
were completed when Thayer and Eldridge opened negotiations for the
book's republication with any new material available. This offer took
the poet to Boston to oversee the work and in May, 1860, a substantial
volume, with many new poems came from the press. The book went through
two editions, a total of between thirty-five hundred and four thousand
copies when the publishers failed. The plates were sold at auction and
went to a notorious pirate, who, within the next ten years, published
and sold over ten thousand copies. Whitman had no control over these
crimped editions and forever after they were a torment to him.
It was not until after the Civil War that a new authentic edition was
published--again without a publisher. In later issues of this edition
Whitman bound in the sheets of "Drum-Taps" and "When Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard Bloom'd," and in still later issues, "Songs Before Parting."
The total number of copies issued is not known but must have been quite
small owing to the effect of the lower priced pirated edition.
The fifth edition was published in Washington and attracted little or no
attention save in England where the demand for complete and unabridged
copies was fostered by Rossetti's emasculated edition. The English
demand was so great that Whitman was compelled to reprint one or two
new editions. He got around the expense of new plates by inserting
"intercallations"--poems printed on separate slips of paper and tipped
in.
In 1881, the next Boston edition was issued. With a recognized publisher
of Osgood's standing there should have been no question of the final
success of "Leaves of Grass." Osgood published all the work of the New
Englanders; Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson and Whittier. Whitman was in
good company save that the Society for the Suppression of Vice
considered "Leaves of Grass" to be bad company and through District
Attorney Stevens secured its suppression. Osgood promptly withdrew the
book and gladly turned over to the author all unsold and unbound copies
and the plates. The plates went to Rees, Welsh and Company, of
Philadelphia, who brought out an edition and then dropped from sight.
David McKay published an edition from the same plates. During this time
certain "special" and "author's" editions were published by Whitman as
his own publisher.
After Whitman's death Small, Maynard & Company, of Boston, became the
authorized publishers. They were followed in turn by D. Appleton and
Company, and Mitchell Kennerley. At this writing Messrs. Doubleday, Page
& Co. are the authorized publishers of "Leaves of Grass," and the
"Prose Works."
Any bibliography of Whitman's Works can be called but an attempt. His
temperamental handling of the plates of the various editions of "Leaves
of Grass" resulted in many curious imprints. There may be omissions, I
grant, but not serious ones. The work I undertook was a clearing up of
the fog which hung about the various Boston editions and setting
cataloguers right on the first edition.
I must, at this point, thank Anne Montgomerie Traubel, of Camden, Mr.
Walter Bartley Quinlan and Mr. Alfred F. Goldsmith, of New York, and Mr.
Henry S. Saunders, of Toronto, Canada, for valuable suggestions and
comparison of notes, and Mr. M. M. Breslow for permission to use his
very excellent collection of Whitmaniana as a basis for this
bibliography.