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Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts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:
This manuscript may have been written between 1850 and 1855, when Whitman was preparing materials for the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The description of the plate-glass windows on Broadway bears some resemblance to a description in the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." This manuscript also bears a distant resemblance to a discussion of "shadows" in the poem later titled "There Was a Child Went Forth." It is also possible that the manuscript was written later, however: the description of Broadway in these lines also closely resembles a description Whitman wrote in his unfinished poem known as "The Two Vaults," a poem that is recorded in a New York notebook (loc.00348) that probably dates to the early 1860s. Whitman also wrote about Broadway elsewhere in later poems, so the manuscript may have been written still later. The manuscript has been pasted down, so an image of the back of the leaf is currently unavailable.
Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The manuscript includes drafts of lines used in the first and tenth poems in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself" and "There Was a Child Went Forth," respectively.
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.
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.
