Content:
Edward Grier concludes that this manuscript was likely written before 1855 because of its similarity to several of the notebooks that Whitman wrote from that period (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 6:2110). Ideas in this manuscript are similar to ideas in the first poem in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, eventually titled "Song of Myself," and lines and phrases from the manuscript appear in another manuscript that may have contributed to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself": see "I know many beautiful things" (tex.00031.html). The tone of the statements is also consistent with Whitman's early journalistic and editorial persona. Ideas and words from this manuscript are also similar to ideas and words that appeared in the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
. There is also a chance this manuscript relates to language in a Whitman-authored review of the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, titled "Walt Whitman and His Poems," originally published in the
United States Review.
An image of the reverse of this manuscript is currently unavailable.
Content:
Lines from this manuscript were used in the preface to the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The sentence that begins "The soul has that measureless pride..." also later became part of the poem "Song of Prudence." Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition, but it was probably written before or early in 1855.
Whitman Archive Title: Outdoors is the best antiseptic
Content:
This prose fragment extols the virtues of outdoor living and the appeal of physical laborers who work outdoors. Similar ideas are found throughout
Leaves of Grass
. The following lines in the poem that was eventually titled "Song of Myself" echoes the first two sentences of this manuscript: "I am enamoured of growing outdoors, / Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods, / Of the builders and steerers of ships, of the wielders of axes and mauls, of the drivers of horses" (1855, p. 21). The first part of this prose fragment also may relate to the following line from the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
: "The passionate tenacity of hunters, woodmen, early risers, cultivators of gardens and orchards and fields, the love of healthy women for the manly form, seafaring persons, drivers of horses, the passion for light and the open air, all is an old varied sign of the unfailing perception of beauty and of a residence of the poetic in outdoor people" (p. v).
The transcription of the manuscript published in
Notes and Fragments
, ed. Richard Maurice Bucke (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 152, includes additional text not now present in the manuscript that may also connect it to the following line in the poem eventually titled "I Sing the Body Electric": "Do you think they are not there because they are not expressed in parlors and lecture-rooms?" (1855, p. 81). Edward Grier claims that this manuscript was, at one time, pinned together with another manuscript (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:169; see duk.00296).
Content:
Edward Grier dates this notebook before 1855, based on the pronoun revisions from third person to first person and the notebook's similarity to Whitman's early
"Talbot Wilson"
notebook (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:102). Grier notes that a portion of this notebook (beginning "How spied the captain and sailors") describes the wreck of the ship
San Francisco
in January 1854 (1:108 n33). A note on one of the last pages of the notebook (surface 26) matches the plot of the first of four tales Whitman published as "Some Fact-Romances" in
The Aristidean
in 1845, so segments of the notebook may have been written as early as the 1840s. Lines from the notebook were used in "Song of Myself" and "A Song of the Rolling Earth," which appeared in the 1856
Leaves of Grass
. Language and ideas from the notebook also appear to have contributed to other poems and prose, including "Miracles;" the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
; "The Sleepers," which first appeared as the fourth poem in the 1855
Leaves
; and "A Song of Joys," which appeared as "Poem of Joys" in the 1860 edition.
Whitman Archive Title: No doubt the efflux of the soul
Content:
This notebook consists almost entirely of prose. However, the ideas and language developed throughout the notebook can be linked to a number of poems that appeared in
Leaves of Grass
, including "Song of Myself," "Great are the Myths" (ultimately shortened to a few lines and titled "Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night"), "Faces," "The Sleepers," and "To Think of Time," versions of which appeared in
Leaves of Grass
in 1855. One manuscript passage is similar to a passage in the preface to the 1855 edition. Thus, this notebook was almost certainly written before that date. Content from the first several paragraphs of this notebook was also used slightly revised in "Song of the Open Road," first published in the 1856 edition of
Leaves
as "Poem of the Road."
Whitman Archive Title: One obligation of great fresh
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content:
Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances or date of its composition. The discussion of "the poetic quality" and the punctuation (at least as rendered by earlier editors) are similar to the preface to the 18555
Leaves of Grass
, so it is possible that the composition date was before or early in 1855..
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content:
Because this manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances or date of its composition, but based on the content it seems likely that it was written between 1850 and 1855, when Whitman was composing his first edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The manuscript note about the "superb wonder of a blade of grass" may relate to similar statements in the prose preface and the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." In
Notes and Fragments
, Richard Maurice Bucke transcribes the manuscript with "Enter into the thoughts of" (nyp.00112) and describes it as "a very early note, the paper torn and almost falling to pieces." The date of the manuscript is almost certainly before 1855.
Whitman Archive Title: American literature must become distinct
Content:
This manuscript includes ideas similar to those found in the 1855 prose preface to
Leaves of Grass
, suggesting that the date is likely before or early in 1855. Floyd Stovall suggests that some of Whitman's ideas in this manuscript came from an article entitled "Thoughts on Reading" that appeared in the
American Whig Review
in May 1845 ("Notes on Whitman's Reading,"
American Literature
26.3 [November 1954]: 352). The manuscript is held at Rutgers University Library along with several similar manuscripts that are numbered sequentially and probably date from around or before 1855: see "dithyrambic trochee" (rut.00022), "The only way in which" (rut.00023), "The money value of real" (rut.00024), and "ground where you may rest" (rut.00025).
Content:
Edward Grier suggests that this manuscript was probably written prior to 1860, noting some similarities in language and sentiment between it and the initial line of No. 4 of the "Thoughts" cluster published first in the 1860–1861 edition of
Leaves of Grass
(
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:118). The erased final line of the manuscript is also similar to language that appears in the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
. The manuscript is held at Rutgers University Library along with several similar manuscripts that are numbered sequentially and probably date from around or before 1855: see "American literature must become distinct (rut.00010)," "dithyrambic trochee" (rut.00022), "The money value of real" (rut.00024), and "ground where you may rest" (rut.00025).
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was preparing materials for the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The manuscript includes lines that relate to the prose preface and to several of the poems in that edition, including the poems eventually titled "Song of Myself," "To Think of Time," and "A Song for Occupations." The manuscript also includes lines that relate to the manuscript poem "Pictures,"" which probably dates to the mid- to late 1850s. Notes about the arrangement and production of the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
are written on the back of this manuscript.
Content:
Although they are written in free verse, both the conventional nature of these lines and the handwriting suggest an early date of inscription. This draft may be a continuation of duk.00018 ("There is no word in"), suggesting it may relate to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." The lines, especially the first and third, also bear some resemblance to a passage of the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
and to lines in what eventually became section 6 of "I Sing the Body Electric."
Content:
Note expressing an admonition to avoid similes and ornament in poetry, possibly related to passages in the prose preface to the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, which express similar sentiments. This scrap has been attached by a collector or archivist to a backing sheet, together with "What shall the great poet be then?," "The most superb beauties," and "Make no quotations."
Content:
Early discussions of this notebook dated it in the 1840s, and the date associated with it in the Library of Congress finding aid is 1847. The cover of the notebook features a note calling it the "Earliest and Most Important Notebook of Walt Whitman." A note on leaf 27 recto includes the date April 19, 1847, and the year 1847 is listed again as part of a payment note on leaf 43 recto. More recently, however, scholars have argued that Whitman repurposed this notebook, and that most of the writing was more likely from 1853 to 1854, just before the publication of
Leaves of Grass
. Almost certainly Whitman began the notebook by keeping accounts, producing the figures that are still visible on some of the page stubs, and later returned to it to write the poetry and prose drafts. For further discussion of dating and the fascinating history of this notebook into the twentieth century, see Matt Miller,
Collage of Myself: Walt Whitman and the Making of Leaves of Grass
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), 2–8. See also Andrew C. Higgins, "Wage Slavery and the Composition of
Leaves of Grass
: The
Talbot Wilson
Notebook,"
Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
20:2 (Fall 2002), 53–77. Scholars have noted a relationship between this notebook and much of the prose and poetry that appeared in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. See, for instance, Edward Grier,
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
(New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1:53–82. The notebook was lost when Grier published his transcription (based on microfilm). The notebook features an early (if not the earliest) example of Whitman using his characteristic long poetic lines, as well as the "generic or cosmic or transcendental 'I'" that appears in
Leaves of Grass
(Grier, 1:55).
Whitman Archive Title: The genuine miracles of Christ
Content:
This cancelled prose manuscript was probably written between 1850 and 1855. Language in the manuscript was used in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, in the poem that was eventually titled "Song of Myself." Segments of the manuscript also resemble language that appeared in the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
and in the 1856 "Poem of Perfect Miracles," later titled "Miracles." The wording of "the vast elemental sympathy, which, only the human soul is capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods," was used, slightly revised, in "A Song of Joys," which first appeared in the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass
as "Poem of Joys."
Content:
Whitman probably inscribed the material in this notebook in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. Some of Whitman's language about the poet and religion in this notebook is similar to the language and ideas used in the preface to the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. Content from leaf 10 verso (see twentieth image) was revised and used in "The Sleepers," the poem eventually titled "The Sleepers," which first appeared in
Leaves of Grass
(1855), including the following lines: "Now the vast dusk bulk that is the whale's bulk . . . . it seems mine, / Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, my tap is death" (1855, p. 74). The passage likely also relates to the following lines in the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself": "How the flukes splash! / How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts of blood!" (1855, p. 48). Content from leaf 13 recto (see twenty-fifth image) may relate to other sections of the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself."
Content:
Lines and phrases on both the recto and verso of this manuscript contributed to portions of the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself," and possibly to other sections of the 1855
Leaves of Grass
, suggesting a composition date before 1855. However, this manuscript also includes lines that probably contributed to "Sun-Down Poem" (later retitled "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry") in the 1856 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. It is possible that some of these poetic lines contributed to the prose preface to the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. A line in this manuscript is similar to the following line, in the poem later titled "Song of Myself": "I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself" (1855, p. 17). Another line is similar to the lines "And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's-self is" (1855, p. 53) and "And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man" (1855, p. 26). Another manuscript line is similar to the line "Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man" (1855, p. 23). And several manuscript lines are similar to the lines beginning "Not merely of the New World but of Africa Europe or Asia . . . . a wandering savage, / A farmer, mechanic, or artist . . . . a gentleman, sailor, lover or quaker, / A prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician or priest" (1855, p. 24). Three other lines are similar to: "Storming enjoying planning loving cautioning, / Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing, / I tread day and night such roads" (1855, p. 38). Edward Grier speculates that Whitman's note "Don't forget the bombardment" relates to the "bombardment" of the "old artillerist" in "Song of Myself": "I am an old artillerist, and tell of some fort's bombardment . . . . and am there again" (1855, p. 40). (See
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:165). Several phrases of the prose on the verso were probably later used, in somewhat revised form, in the following lines from "Sun-down Poem" in the 1856 edition of
Leaves of Grass
: "The best I had done seemed to me blank and suspicious, / My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? Would not people laugh at me?" (1856, p. 216). The poem was later titled "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." It is possible that some of the poetic lines on the verso contributed to the prose preface to the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The lines "I am too great to be a mere President or Major General / I remain with my fellows—with mechanics, and farmers and common people" may relate to the sentence from the preface that reads: "Other states indicate themselves in their deputies....but the genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors...but always most in the common people" (1855, p. iii). The line "I remain with them all on equal terms" may also be related to the following line in the preface: "The messages of great poets to each man and woman are, Come to us on equal terms" (1855, p. vii). The line "In me are the old and young the fool and the wise thinker" may be related to a similar phrase in the poem eventually titled "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?": "The stupid and the wise thinker" (1855, p. 92). The phrase "mother of many children" appears in both the preface and in the poem later titled "Faces."
Whitman Archive Title: The new theologies bring forward
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content:
This manuscript, known only from a transcription published by Clifton Joseph Furness in
Walt Whitman's Workshop: A Collection of Unpublished Manuscripts
(Harvard University Press, 1928), 43, includes lines that appeared, in a slightly altered form, in the preface to the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, and later in the poem eventually titled "By Blue Ontario's Shore," first published in the 1856 edition of
Leaves
as "Poem of Many in One." The date of the manuscript is therefore probably before or early in 1855.
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content:
The content of this manuscript, which is known only from a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in
Notes and Fragments
(London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 103, appeared in slightly revised form in the prose preface to the 1855 first edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The date of composition is therefore probably just before 1855.
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content:
The language and ideas in this manuscript are reminiscent of phrases and ideas Whitman used in the preface to the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
, suggesting that this manuscript was composed before or early in 1855. Compare, in particular, the following passages from that edition: "the air they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors" (p. iii); "the President's taking off his hat to them not they to him" (p. iii); and "take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men" (p. vi). The manuscript has not been located and is known only from a transcription in
Walt Whitman's Workshop
, ed. Clifton J. Furness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928), 55.
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content:
This one-sentence manuscript, expressing the opinion that "all the military and naval personnel of the States must conform to the sternest principles of Dem[ocracy]," is known only from a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in
Notes and Fragments
(London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 55. The sentiment and phrasing of the manuscript are similar to statements Whitman made in "Democracy," an essay first published in the December 1867 issue of
The Galaxy.
When in 1871, Whitman combined this and two other essays to form the pamphlet-length essay
Democratic Vistas,
he elaborated the point with a note declaring "the whole present system of officering [. . .] a monstrous exotic." It is also possible that the present manuscript represents a draft fragment that contributed the "Preface" to the first edition of
Leaves of Grass
(1855), which contains a passing reference to the belief that no "detail of the army or navy [. . .] can long elude the [. . .] instinct of American standards."
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content:
The language in this manuscript is similar to the following line from the poem that would eventually be titled "Song of Myself": "By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms" (1855, p. 29). Ideas and words from this manuscript are also similar to ideas and words that appeared in the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
. See, for instance, the line: "the melancholy prudence of the abandonment of such a great being as a man is to the toss and pallor of years of moneymaking with all their scorching days and icy nights and all their stifling deceits and underhanded dodgings, or infinitessimals of parlors, or shameless stuffing while others starve . . " (1855, p. x).
Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition, but it is possible that it was written in the early 1850s as Whitman was preparing materials for the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. In his transcription of the manuscript, Richard Maurice Bucke paired it with another manuscript, "Remember that the clock and" (duk.00298).
Content:
This manuscript was probably written between 1850 and 1855, when Whitman was preparing material for his first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. A portion of the first paragraph of the manuscript, dealing with music and its relationship to the soul, is similar to a passage in the poem eventually titled "A Song For Occupations." Other language in the manuscript is similar to the prose preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
and to lines from the poems that would eventually be titled "Song of Myself" and "I Sing the Body Electric."
Whitman Archive Title: I know many beautiful things
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript between 1850 and 1855, as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. Ideas and phrases from the manuscript appear in the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." This manuscript also includes lines and phrases that appear in other manuscripts. See loc.00387 ("Lofty sirs") and loc.00163 ("Rule in all addresses").
Content:
This manuscript is written on a green sheet used for the
endpapers of the first edition of the
Leaves of
Grass
(1855), an edition that
begins with a ten-page statement in prose, originally untitled and later
known generally as the 1855
Preface
. This manuscript seems to represent
an early attempt by Whitman to recast the 1855 prose
Preface
into poetry. The 1860–61 edition of
Leaves of Grass
introduced two new poems created in this way: "Poem of Many in One" (later "By Blue Ontario's Shore") and "Poem of the Last Explanation of Prudence" (later "Song of Prudence"). Neither of the published poems incorporates lines from this manuscript, though it and "Song of Prudence" are drawn from adjacent portions of the 1855 Preface.
Content:
Draft lines, cancelled with a vertical strike, that appeared in the second poem of the 1855
Leaves of Grass,
eventually titled "A Song for Occupations." The phrase "driver(s) of horses," a version of which appears in text added to a transcription of this manuscript in
Notes and Fragments
, ed. Richard Maurice Bucke (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 31, appears in both the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
and appears in its first poem, eventually titled "Song of Myself." On the reverse is one heavily corrected line whose relationship to the recto material or to any other published poem is uncertain.
Content:
Manuscript of poetic lines unpublished in Whitman's lifetime. Resemblances to passages in the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
are perhaps evidence that these notes constitute draft material for that edition. Another possibility is that these notes represent an attempt to recast ideas from the preface into poetry—a process that Whitman used successfully to create several new poems for the second edition of 1856. The note at the top of the manuscript lends credence to the second theory, as it follows the characteristic title structure unique to the second edition, although Whitman never published a poem under the title "Poem of Existence."
Whitman Archive Title: What shall the great poet be then?
Content:
Note about "the great poet" that possibly contributed to a passage in the prose preface to the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, in which Whitman writes that the "swarms of the polished deprecating and reflectors and the polite float off and leave no remembrance" (1855, p. xii). This scrap has been attached by a collector or archivist to a backing sheet, together with "It seems to me," "The most superb beauties," and "Make no quotations."
Content:
This manuscript includes notes that anticipate the preface to the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. Images and phrases in the second paragraph of the first leaf are reminscent of lines in both the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself" and the poem eventually titled "I Sing the Body Electric." Another line on the first leaf appeared in a slightly different form in "Poem of The Singers, and of The Words of Poems" in the 1856 edition of
Leaves
(a poem later titled "Song of the Answerer"). The stated desire for "satisfiers" and "lovers" (found here on the bottom of the second leaf) appears in "Poem of Many in One," also first published in the 1856 edition and later titled "By Blue Ontario's Shore."
Content:
In this manuscript (likely from the early 1850s), Whitman describes his views on style and composition. His comments about the importance of a lack of "ornament" in literature are similar to lines from the preface to the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. Whitman reworked some of those ideas on ornament and they appeared in the poem "Says" in the 1860–1861 edition of
Leaves
. The poem was later retitled "Suggestions" and was retained in
Leaves
until 1872 but thereafter was excluded.
Content:
This prose manuscript includes a thought similar to one from the poem that was eventually titled "Song of Myself." Whitman writes that "The noble soul steadily rejects any liberty or privilege or wealth that is not open on the same terms to every other man and every other woman." This idea is phrased more memorably in the first poem in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
—"By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms" (29)—suggesting a date for the manuscript of 1855 or earlier. Other ideas and words from this manuscript are similar to ideas and words that appeared in the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
. See, for instance, the line: "the melancholy prudence of the abandonment of such a great being as a man is to the toss and pallor of years of moneymaking with all their scorching days and icy nights and all their stifling deceits and underhanded dodgings, or infinitessimals of parlors, or shameless stuffing while others starve . . " (1855, p. x). The reverse (duk.00261) contains ideas and language related to what eventually became section 41 of "Song of Myself."
Content:
This manuscript includes words and ideas similar to those that appear in the prose preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
. Edward Grier notes that the "date is probably before or early in 1855" (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:177). On the reverse is another prose fragment (duk.00293) that appears to be related to lines from what would later become "Song of Myself."
Content:
The writing at the top of this manuscript bears some resemblance to this sentence from the preface to the first edition of
Leaves of Grass
: "Great genius and the people of these states must never be demeaned to romances" (1855, p. ix). The language and topic also resemble those of Whitman's self-authored review of the 1855
Leaves of Grass
, "Walt Whitman and His Poems," which was published in
The United States Review
in September, 1855. It was also one of several reviews printed separately and included in some copies of the 1855 edition. Edward Grier, in
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts,
notes that "the small writing suggests a date in the 1850s" (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1:361.
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. Lines in the manuscript are similar to sentences used in the preface to that edition. Ideas expressed in the manuscript also relate loosely to lines in the first poem in the 1855 edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." Lines written on the back of this manuscript leaf (uva.00570 appeared in the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself."
Whitman Archive Title: [A little sum laid aside for burial money—a few clapboards around]
Content:
This is a poetic rendition of a long sentence in the preface to the 1855
edition of
Leaves of Grass.
The
prose sentence begins, "Beyond the independence of a little sum laid aside for
burial-money, and of a few clapboards around..."
Whitman Archive Title: you woman, mother of children
Content:
This manuscript may have been written in the early 1850s, as Whitman was preparing material for the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The language and imagery in the manuscript are similar to language and imagery used in the preface to that edition and in the first poem, eventually titled "Song of Myself."
Whitman Archive Title: Sanity and ensemble characterise
Content:
Most of the lines in this manuscript amount to a poetic rendering of sentences and phrases drawn from the prose preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
and constitute a partial draft of the 1856 poem "Poem of Many In One," which eventually became "By Blue Ontario's Shore." The line at the bottom of this manuscript, partially cut away, was also drawn from the 1855 preface but was used in the 1856 poem "Liberty Poem for Asia, Africa, Europe, America, Australia, Cuba, and the Archipelagoes of The Sea," which Whitman titled, in its final version, "To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire." Draft lines on the back of this manuscript (upa.00221) also relate to the preface to the 1855
Leaves of Grass
.
Content:
These pages were written by Whitman in the early to mid-1850s. William White described the pages as "torn from a tall notebook" (
Daybooks and Notebooks
[New York: New York University Press, 1978], 773–777). White noted a relationship between these pages and the poems "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?," "By Blue Ontario's Shore," "Song of the Answerer," and "There Was a Child Went Forth." Some of the ideas and language being worked out here also appear in the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." For a discussion of the dating and importance of this notebook, see Matt Miller,
Collage of Myself: Walt Whitman and the Making of Leaves of Grass
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), 11–16.
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content:
Notes on a future edition of
Leaves of Grass
in which Whitman insists that the "divine style" is one without ornament. In the preface to the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, Whitman writes about literary ornaments, concluding that "most works are most beautiful without ornament." Whitman reworked some of these ideas on ornament and they appear in the poem, "Suggestions," which initially appeared in
Leaves of Grass
(1860) as "Says." This poem was retained in
Leaves of Grass
until 1872 and thereafter was excluded. This manuscript is known only from a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in
Notes and Fragments
(London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 69.
Content:
Emory Holloway has pointed out that Whitman's reference to the sinking of the
San Francisco
indicates that this notebook, "or at least part of it, is later than 1853." He writes that "it was probably begun in 1854" because the "marble church" in the first passage presumably refers to the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, "which was not completed until then." See Holloway, "A Whitman Manuscript,"
American Mercury
3 (December 1924), 475–480. See also Andrew C. Higgins, "Art and Argument: The Rise of Walt Whitman's Rhetorical Poetics, 1838-1855," PhD diss., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1999; and Edward F. Grier,
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
(New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1:128–135. Of the notebook passages that can be identified with published works, most represent early versions of images and phrases from the 1855 poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." One passage clearly contributed to the 1856 poem later titled "Song of the Open Road." Others are possibly connected to the poems eventually titled "A Song for Occupations" and "Great Are the Myths," both first published in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass,
and to the preface for that volume. One passage seems to have contributed to the 1860–1861 poem that Whitman later titled "Our Old Feuillage." One passage is similar to a line in a long manuscript poem unpublished in Whitman's lifetime, titled "Pictures". The first several lines of that poem (not including the line in question) were revised and published as "My Picture-Gallery" in
The American
in October 1880 and then in
Leaves of Grass
as part of the "Autumn Rivulets" cluster (1881–1882, p. 310). No image of the outside back cover of the notebook is available because it has been stitched into a larger volume.
Content:
A version of the second paragraph of this manuscript appears toward the end of the preface to the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
>: "No great literature nor any like style of behaviour or oratory or social intercourse or household arrangements or public institutions or the treatment by bosses of employed people, nor executive detail or detail of the army or navy, nor spirit of legislation or courts or police or tuition or architecture or songs or amusements or the costumes of young men, can long elude the jealous and passionate instinct of American standards" (xii). Edward Grier dates the manuscript after 1857 because it is written on the reverse of a City of Williamsburgh tax form (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:400). Scholars, following Fredson Bowers, have generally assumed that Whitman used the Williamsburgh tax forms from 1857 to 1860, while he was working at the
Brooklyn Daily Times
. The city of Williamsburgh was incorporated with Brooklyn effective January 1855, so the forms would have been obsolete after that date (
Whitman's Manuscripts: Leaves of Grass [1860]
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955], xli–xliii). Most of the manuscripts Whitman wrote on the tax forms can be dated to the late 1850s. Bowers also notes, however, that Whitman may have used the forms over a considerable span of time, and that "it is not impossible that Whitman had picked up these tax forms for scrap paper at Rome Brothers at some unknown date in 1854 or early 1855, or later" (xliii). At least two of the tax forms Whitman used were dated 1854 (see, for instance, "Vast national tracts"), but as Grier points out, this may not correspond to the date of Whitman's writing (5:1946). Whitman may have found a stack of obsolete Williamsburgh forms in 1857 that included discarded draft forms dated earlier. Although this manuscript matches wording in the preface to the 1855 edition, Whitman copied out sections of the preface in several later manuscripts, and the revision from "much longer" to "permanently" suggests that here Whitman may have been revising away from the preface version here as well. The manuscript is thus difficult to date conclusively, but it was almost certainly written after 1854 and probably before 1860.
Content:
This notebook, now lost, contains much draft material used in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, in addition to a few images and phrasings that Whitman used in the second (1856) and third (1860) editions. As the folder title indicates, the notebook is currently represented by photocopied images of each page derived, apparently, from a microfilm of the original that was made in the 1930s prior to the notebook's disappearance from the collection during World War II. As Floyd Stovall has noted, the few datable references in this notebook (e.g., the fighting at Sebastopol during the Crimean War) are to events from about 1853 to late 1854, shortly before the first publication of
Leaves of Grass
. See Stovall, "Dating Whitman's Early Notebooks,"
Studies in Bibliography
24 (1971), 197–204. See also Edward Grier,
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
(New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1:138–155. Surfaces 9, 10, 54, and 55 bear passages that probably contributed to the first poem of the 1855 edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself," and other material, on surfaces 26, 46, 51, 54, and 58, is clearly linked to the evolution of that poem. A passage on surface 23 is also perhaps related to its development. Surfaces 11 and 12 both have material probably used as fodder for the poem "Song of the Answerer," first published as the seventh poem in the 1855
Leaves.
A brief passage on surface 12 possibly contributed to the poem first published in 1860 as the fourth of the "Chants Democratic" and later retitled "Our Old Feuillage." Surfaces 13 and 46 contain drafts of passages used in the second poem of 1855, later titled "A Song for Occupations." Material on surfaces 24 and 47 probably also contributed to this poem. Passages on surfaces 17, 18, 40, 42, and 45 are likely early drafts toward lines used in "Poem of the Sayers of the Words of the Earth" (1856), which later became "A Song of the Rolling Earth." Surface 18 also bears writing probably related to the twelfth and final poem of the 1855
Leaves,
later titled "Faces." On surfaces 18, 24, and 51 are lines that might represent draft material toward "I Sing the Body Electric" (first published as the fifth poem of the 1855
Leaves
). Other passages, on surfaces 47 and 55, are likely related to that poem; those on surfaces 36, 37, 44, 45, and 47 are certainly related. Ideas and images written on surfaces 20 and 46 are likely related to the poem "Song of the Open Road," which first appeared as "Poem of the Road," and a passage on surface 24 may also be related. Two passages on surface 21 were used in the tenth poem of the 1855
Leaves of Grass,
later titled "There Was a Child Went Forth." Surface 22 contains writing probably used in "Sun-Down Poem" (1856), titled "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" in later editions. Some of the writing on surface 24 might also have contributed to the development of that poem. Another passage on surface 22, as well as passages on surfaces 26, 47, and 60, are possibly related to the 1855 Preface. A different passage on surface 60 is clearly related to the Preface, and a passage on surface 45 is likely related to it. Two of the draft lines of poetry on surface 31 were used in the untitled third poem of the "Debris" cluster in the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass.
This poem was retitled "Leaflets" in 1867 and dropped from subsequent editions. The writing on surface 41 contributed to the 1856 "Poem of Salutation," which was eventually titled "Salut au Monde!" The jotting at the top of surface 43 is also likely connected to this poem.
Content:
This manuscript contains notes for a cluster of poems that Whitman characterizes as being "in the
same way as 'Calamus Leaves' expressing the idea and sentiment of Happiness . . . " Whitman's use of the title "Calamus Leaves" on the opposite side, as in some very similar notes currently housed at Duke University, point toward the 1860 cluster "Enfans d'Adam" and dates the notes to some point in the late spring of 1859. On the reverse side of the leaf (uva.00516) are lines that perhaps constitute early notes for the second poem in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, a poem that would eventually be titled "A Song for Occupations."
Content:
This manuscript is written on the back of a City of Williamsburgh tax form. A later note, in Whitman's hand, claims that the manuscript was written in 1855. It is possible that one of the lines relates to the following segment from the prose preface of the 1855
Leaves of Grass
: "the perfect equality of the female with the male . . . ." (1855, p. iv). Scholars, following Fredson Bowers, have generally assumed that Whitman used the Williamsburgh tax forms from 1857 to 1860, while he was working at the
Brooklyn Daily Times
. The city of Williamsburgh was incorporated with Brooklyn effective January 1855, so the forms would have been obsolete after that date (
Whitman's Manuscripts: Leaves of Grass [1860]
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955], xli–xliii). Most of the manuscripts Whitman wrote on the tax forms can be dated to the late 1850s. Bowers also notes, however, that Whitman may have used the forms over a considerable span of time, and that "it is not impossible that Whitman had picked up these tax forms for scrap paper at Rome Brothers at some unknown date in 1854 or early 1855, or later" (xliii). At least two of the tax forms Whitman used were dated 1854 (see, for instance, "Vast national tracts" [loc.05354.html]), but as Edward Grier points out, this may not correspond to the date of Whitman's writing (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 5:1946). Whitman may have found a stack of obsolete Williamsburgh forms in 1857 that included discarded draft forms dated earlier. This manuscript is thus difficult to date conclusively, but it was almost certainly written after 1854 and probably before 1860. Based on a transcription of the manuscript in Horace Traubel's
With Walt Whitman in Camden
, the later note about the date of the manuscript must have been added before September 1888 ([New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1915], 246).
Whitman Archive Title: Understand that you can have
Content:
Although no specific lines from this manuscript can be directly tied to any of Whitman's published work, the language and ideas are similar to certain sections of the prose preface to the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, as well as to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself," suggesting that this manuscript may have been written around that time. Wording in this manuscript is also similar to a line in the 1855 poem eventually titled "To Think of Time." A note written by Richard Maurice Bucke, one of Whitman's literary executors, dates the manuscript to 1855 or 1856 (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
, ed. Edward F. Grier [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:222).
Content:
The sentiments about the poet and versification are present in the
revised "Preface, 1855, to first issue of
'Leaves of Grass,'" published in
Specimen Days & Collect
(1882-1883). Grier
dates this scrap from 1857,
and the verso has a printed date of 185-.
