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Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts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."
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).
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:
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 drafts of lines in the first and fourth poems of that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself" and "The Sleepers." On the back of this manuscript is a prose fragment containing phrases that later became part of the poem "Unnamed Lands," first published in the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass
.
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. Language from the manuscript appears in the first poem of that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." The phrase "light and air" also appears in the fourth poem of that edition, eventually titled "The Sleepers." The supplied first line, beginning "Under this rank coverlid," was added to a transcription of the manuscript that appears in
Notes and Fragments
, ed. Richard Maurice Bucke (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 16. The line is not currently written on the manuscript.
Content:
Notes for a poem about night "visions," possibly related to the fourth poem in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, eventually titled "The Sleepers." Fragments of an unidentified newspaper clipping about the Puget Sound area have been pasted to the leaf. An image of the verso is not available.
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass.
This manuscript, filled with suggestive words and phrases, appears to have contributed to the first and fourth poems in the volume, eventually titled "Song of Myself" and "The Sleepers," respectively. The phrase the phrase "polished melons" is reminiscent of the line "I reach to the leafy lips . . . . I reach to the polished breasts of melons" in "Song of Myself," and the list in this manuscript may relate to the following line: "Root of washed sweet-flag, timorous pond-snipe, nest of guarded duplicate eggs, it shall be you." Other elements of this manuscript appear to have contributed to "The Sleepers." The jotting "I am a look / mystic / in a trance/ exaltation" may have led to the line "I am a dance . . . . Play up there! the fit is whirling me fast." Further, the reference to the soothing hand is perhaps an early version of the passage in which the narrator, who stands "with drooping eyes by the worstsuffering and restless," passes his "hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them." Finally, the passage about "Sap that flows from the end of the manly maple" (associated in the manuscript with the "tooth of delight" and "tooth prong") probably contributed to the following passage in the same poem: "The white teeth stay, and the boss-tooth advances in darkness, / And liquor is spilled on lips and bosoms by touching glasses, and the best liquor afterward." These lines were removed from the final versioen of the poem. The writing on the reverse side of the leaf (duk.00001) contributed to a different part of the poem that became "Song of Myself."
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. It is a draft of lines that appeared in the fourth poem in that edition, eventually titled "The Sleepers." Fragmentary poetic lines on the back of this manuscript leaf (uva.00602) may relate to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself."
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was preparing materials for the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. It is a draft of lines that appeared in the fourth poem in that edition, eventually titled "The Sleepers." The word "Sleepchaser's" appears in the upper right corner, perhaps indicating that Whitman was considering a title similar to the 1860–1861 and 1867 title "Sleep-Chasings" even before the poem was first published in 1855, unless this is in fact a reworking of the section for the 1860–1861 edition. The possibility of a post-1855 dating, however, appears to be slight given the similarities of paper choice and inscription techniques among other leaves and similarities to drafts in "Talbot Wilson" (loc.00141), an early Library of Congress notebook. The poem "Sleep-Chasings" eventually became "The Sleepers" in 1871–1872.
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was preparing materials for the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. It is a draft of lines that appear in the fourth poem of that edition, eventually titled "The Sleepers." A revised version of the phrase "pennies on their eyes" appears in the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." Lines on the back of this manuscript leaf (uva.00566) relate to the poem eventually titled "Faces."
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 is a draft of a section of the fourth poem in that edition, eventually titled "The Sleepers." Lines on the back of this leaf (uva.00565) relate to the manuscript poem "Pictures."
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:
A bound copy of corrected pages of "The Sleepers"from the 1876 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The
corrections are written in ink, purple ink (faded red?) and blue pencil
on every page and are for the 1881 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. There is
a portrait of Whitman opposite a title page reading "Sleepers, by Walt
Whitman, The Poet's Corrected Proof."
