Whitman, Walt

Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn: [For the author by Andrew and James Rome], 1855

Small folio (11 1/8 x 7 3/4 in.; 281 x 197 mm). Frontispiece portrait of the author by Hollyer after a photograph printed on thick paper, absolutely original tissue guard, publisher's dark green coarse-ribbed cloth, spine with gilt title and floral ornaments, corners of center of covers with blind-stamped floral ornaments, upper cover titled in ornamental, "rustic" gilt font all within triple-ruled frame, marbled endpapers and all edges gilt; frontispiece somewhat foxed as usual with tissue creased, title-page slightly toned, a few pages only with faint spot to upper margin else internally generally fresh and unspotted; trace of wear to cloth at spine-ends with the gilt ornaments just rubbed at head and tail, bottom corners just beginning to expose, cloth very slightly rubbed, almost imperceptibly tightened, but a superior copy. Green half morocco gilt and cloth chemise and slpcase.

Jno. Shinner, Monteagle House (signature, May 1856, on title-page) — G.M. Wency — N. G. Benedict (gift inscription on title-page). Acquisition: Ralph Geoffrey Newman

Feinberg/Detroit 269; Grolier, American 67; Johnson, High Spots 79; Meyerson A2.1.a1; Printing and the Mind Man 340; Wells & Goldsmith 3

First edition, first issue of "America's second Declaration of Independence." A splendid copy, with contemporary provenance, of this notoriously rare and fragile book, one of the finest obtainable copies.

One of the most attractive volumes in American literature, this self-published effort by Whitman was also at least partially type-set  by the author. Of the 795 copies comprising the first edition and printed on the small handpress of the Romes in Brooklyn, only 337 were bound in this, the most ornate of the original cloth bindings. The subsequent cloth edition emphasized the blind stamping rather than gilt, an obvious exercise in reducing costs for a volume that was subject to an extremely limited distribution, with only a handful of copies dispersed at  any one time.This first issue binding was also before the insertion of 8 pages of notices (mostly written by Whitman himself) into later bindings of both cloth and printed wrappers.

"... Newspaperman, hack writer, philosopher, patriot, remarkable and very individual poet ... 'loafer' (his own word) and enigma, he challenges curiosity as one of the few towering American literary figures." (Bennett).

"... Leaves of Grass is imbued with the spirit of brotherhood and a pride in the democracy of the young American nation. In a sense, it is America's second Declaration of Independence: that of 1776 was political, that of 1855 intellectual" (Printing and the Mind of Man).