Content:
This manuscript is an early draft of the first part of the essay "The Bible as
Poetry" published in the
Critic
on February
3, 1883 and then included, with the same title, in
November Boughs
, published in 1888
(later retained in the
Complete Prose
Works
, published in 1892). On the verso is a letter from D.W. Zimmerman to Whitman, dated 13 January 1883.
Content:
A manuscript draft of "The Bible as Poetry," with corrections and printing instructions scrawled in the margins. This manuscript has been mounted in a bound volume along with two images of Whitman; a letter from Whitman to Jeanette L. Gilder and Joseph B. Gilder, publishers of
The Critic
; and a printed copy of "The Bible as Poetry." Only those leaves which comprise the prose manuscript have been included in this finding aid. Whitman's essay first appeared in the 3 February 1883 issue of
The Critic
, a literary magazine founded in 1881 by the Gilders. A revised version of the essay was later included in
November Boughs
(1888). The essay remained unchanged between 1888 and its inclusion in
Complete Prose
(1892).
