WHITMAN, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Published: Brooklyn, NY: [for the Author,] 1855.

Presented by Sammy Jay of Peter Harrington Rare Books.

Small folio. Original green cloth stamped in “rustic” blind and gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed in a custom green quarter morocco case, cloth chemise. With portrait frontispiece engraved by Hollyer from a photograph printed on heavy paper. Some light foxing/spotting including to frontispiece, original tissue guard present, touch of rubbing to extremities, tiny tear at foot of spine; overall a fine copy.

First edition, first state binding, a fine, unrestored copy with early provenance of this book which, more than any other perhaps, has defined America to itself. “He was and is the poet and prophet of democracy, and the intoxication of his immense affirmative, the fervor of his ‘barbaric yawp,’ are so powerful that the echo of his crude yet rhythmic song rings forever in the American air” (Grolier One Hundred). The first edition of Leaves of Grass was self-published by Whitman, the type partially hand-set by the poet himself for printing in the Brooklyn Heights shop of Andrew Rome, assisted by his brother, Tom. Various stop-press revisions within the first printing have been identified, with this copy exhibiting a mix of first and second states. As production continued and Whitman’s money ran tight, the bindings became progressively less elaborate. As the hand-set type jostled and occasionally fell off the hand-inked, iron-bed press, each copy is arguably unique. Only 337 copies were bound in the deluxe first binding with gilt border, edges gilt and marbled endpapers, as here. A total of 795 copies were eventually produced. The “Monteagle House” of the inscription is the Monteagle House Hotel in Niagara Falls, opened in January 1856 and one of the grandest hotels in the country at the time. Whitman visited Niagara Falls twice, first in 1848 and again in 1880. He mentions the Falls in part 33 of “Song of Myself”: “Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance” (page 36, line 23 in the first edition). “Whitman’s self-conscious memorialization of Niagara is wholly consistent with a central aspect of his overall poetic project, that of, as David Reynolds suggests [in Walt Whitman’s America (1995)], absorbing and being absorbed by America and thus fashioning a significant literary geography” (Rachman, Stephen. “Niagara Falls,” in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Walt Whitman, p. 464). Much has been written of the significance of this first edition – “America’s second Declaration of Independence” to quote PMM. “The slender volume introduced the poet who, celebrating the nation by celebrating himself, has since remained at the heart of America’s cultural memory because in the world of his imagination Americans have learned to recognize and possibly understand their own” (Marki, “Leaves of Grass, 1855 edition,” in Walt Whitman, 1998). A beautiful copy, with provenance offering rare evidence of contemporary ownership of a book that was largely shunned by the public upon its first release: “Monteagle House, May 1856” written boldly in a calligraphic hand below the title and with the ownership inscription of Jonathan Skinner at head, apparently at the same time; subsequent gift inscription of G. Mercy to N. G. Benedict above the imprint; collector’s bookplate of Mary Crake to frontispiece verso; latterly in the library of Ralph G. Newman of Chicago, sold at Sotheby’s New York, June 4, 2013, lot 169.

WHITMAN, Walt. Leaves of Grass. 1855. Peter Harrington Rare Books.

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