Whitman, Walt

10 volumes, 8vo. Frontispieces in two states, original manuscript leaf in vol. I together with a hand-engrossed certification leaf signed by Jeanette Gilder. Original publisher's receipt (for $500) laid-in. Full dark-green levant, covers with an overall floral design in gilt surrounding a central lozenge onlaid in red, the spine in six compartments with raised bands, red moire silk endsheets, top edges gilt, at The Knickerbocker Press.

BAL 21454A; Myerson B4.

The Author's Manuscript Edition, number 20 of 32 copies: with a original manuscript leaf in Whitman's hand comprising a portion of Leaves of Grass.

Contains an autograph draft leaf from chapter 153 (Hours of the Soul) of Specimen Days, presenting the entire East subsection, beginning, "What a subject for a poem! Indeed, where else a more pregnant, more splendid one? Where one more idealistic-real, more subtle, more sensuous-delicate?" The manuscript incorporates three lines from "The Errand Bearers", a poem that was later retitled "A Broadway Pageant" and included in the 1871 edition of Leaves of Grass. The manuscript has a number of strike-throughs and emendations, some in purple ink, and a note that the three-line quote from "The Errand Bearers" should be set in smaller type. Any portion of Leaves of Grass in Whitman's hand is desirable.