LEAVES OF GRASS by Whitman, Walt - 1856

Brooklyn, NY: [Published for the Author by Fowler and Wells], 1856. iv,[5]-384,[1]pp. Small octavo. Original dark grayish-green cloth, stamped in blind, spine decorated, and upper board lettered, in gilt. Portrait. Neatly rebacked, with the original backstrip laid down (slightly dull, and with shallow losses at crown and toe, with attendant strengthening to inner hinges), early pencil signature on free endsheet, followed by a neat ink paraph, same early, small ink last name in upper fore-corner of title, usual slight tanning to paper and a few formerly turned down corners, otherwise a very good copy. Folding cloth slipcase. Second edition (only printing), expanded by the addition of thirty-two poems, and the substantial collection of reviews and notices at the end, among them the letter of praise from Emerson (first published as a small promotional broadside, and excerpted here in the spine stamping as well). Myerson references John Burroughs, and Wells & Goldsmith, as the source for the determination that the edition consisted of one thousand copies, which sold quickly. Fowler and Wells declined to put their name on the title-page as publishers, but the terminal page of adverts records their participation. This edition "is quite a rarity and is seldom found in good condition" - Wells & Goldsmith. "Always the champion of the common man, Whitman is both the poet and the prophet of democracy. The whole of LEAVES OF GRASS is imbued with the spirit of brotherhood and a pride in the democracy of the young American nation" - Printing & The Mind of Man. "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 100. BAL 21396 & 5225(n). MYERSON A2.2. WELLS & GOLDSMITH pp. 5-6. GROLIER AMERICAN HUNDRED 67. PRINTING & THE MIND OF MAN 340.