"A PEAK OF VISIONARY AND CREATIVE INTOXICATION": VERY RARE AND SIGNIFICANTLY ENLARGED SECOND EDITION OF LEAVES OF GRASS, "AMERICA'S SECOND DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE"

WHITMAN, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn, New York: [Fowler & Wells, for the author], 1856. 12mo, original dark green cloth. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $15,000.

Rare and enlarged second edition, one of only 1000 copies printed, with frontispiece portrait of Whitman and advertisement leaf following text. With 20 additional poems not appearing in the 1855 first edition—including "A Woman Waits for Me" and "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?"—"the book is quite a rarity and is seldom found in good condition" (Wells and Goldsmith).

"Whitman is both the poet and the prophet of democracy… In a sense, [Leaves of Grass] is America's second Declaration of Independence" (PMM 340). This second edition, with 20 more poems than the first edition in 1855, reveals Whitman's concern to reach as large an audience as possible; he introduced changes in the book's internal and external format intended to evoke the then-popular volumes of poetry by Whittier and Longfellow, including the latter's spectacularly successful Song of Hiawatha. "The second edition represents the fact that Whitman "had arrived at that necessary combination of originality and convention by which the most vigorous of talents always perpetuates itself… This is the poetry of day and the poetry of unending flow… He was never again to attain so final a peak of creative and visionary intoxication" (Bloom, Whitman, 112-14).

The most controversial change would prove to be his inclusion of praise from Ralph Waldo Emerson on the book's spine. Acknowledging receipt of his complimentary copy of the first edition of Leaves of Grass, Emerson had hailed Whitman's achievement: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career." When Whitman brought out this second edition the next year, Emerson's unguarded testimonial appeared on the spine (as designed by Whitman himself) in gilt letters. Emerson was agitated about the use of his private words as advertising copy: "Friends who visited Emerson when the blazoned second edition arrived in the mail claimed that until that moment they had never seen him truly angry" (Kaplan, 211).

This second edition "was published by Fowler and Wells, and while they refused to print their name on the title-page, all copies have a leaf of Fowler and Wells' advertisements"—as in the present copy (Wells and Goldsmith, 5-6). "Like the first, it was privately published, but it also had—like the first—the secret backing of the phrenological firm of Fowler and Wells. Whitman believed in phrenology to the extent that the movement encouraged good personal hygiene and physical exercise, because he saw a healthy body as the signature of a healthy soul" (ANB).

Among the poems appearing for the first time in this edition are "Poem of Salutation" ("O take my hand, Walt Whitman!"), "Poem of Procreation" ("A woman waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking") and "Lesson Poem." Also included in this edition are the whole text of Emerson's letter to Whitman, Whitman's reply and reviews of the first edition. Myerson A.2.2. BAL 21396. Reynolds, 352-63.

From the collection of Edwin and Irma Grabhorn, of Grabhorn Press fame (co-founders).

Without front free endpaper. Original cloth with a bit of wear, chipping to spine ends, spine faded with the famous Emerson quote on spine still readable, boards fresh with front board gilt bright. Usual foxing through text. Very good condition. A rare and desirable edition of this literary masterpiece.