Will you have the walls | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: Will you have the walls
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00085
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript was probably written between 1850 and 1855, when Whitman was preparing material for the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . The ideas and language in the last section of the manuscript may relate to the first poem of that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." The first part of this manuscript resembles a line in the fifth poem of that edition, eventually titled "I Sing the Body Electric." The leaf looks like it may have been extracted from a notebook. On the reverse (nyp.00549) is prose writing that contains several phrases similar to some found in the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself," as well as later poems.