Skip to main content
Literary Manuscripts

Integrated Catalog of Walt Whitman's Literary Manuscripts

Truly What Is Commonest

  • Whitman Archive Title: truly what is commonest
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.05641
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Library of Congress
  • Series: Recovered Cardboard Butterfly and Notebooks, [1847]-[circa 1863-1864]
  • Date: Before or early in 1855
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: The words that appear near the beginning of this scrap are similar to a line from "Song of Myself," in which Whitman writes "What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me." Thus, it is likely that this manuscript dates from before or early in 1855.

View All Works
Back to top