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Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin

Original finding aid created by Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center; revised and expanded by the Walt Whitman Archive and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. Encoded Archival Description completed with the assistance of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Gladys Kreible Delmas Foundation, the University of Nebraska Research Council, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.




Individual items at this repository

  • Whitman Archive Title: After all, not to create only
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00069
  • Folder: bv1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1871
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 29 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56
  • Content: Draft of the poem "After all, Not to Create Only," written for the opening of the fortieth Annual Exhibition of the American Institute in 1871 and published on 7 September 1871 in both the New York Commercial Advertiser and the New York Evening Post. It was reprinted in several newspapers and as a pamphlet, After All, Not to Create Only (1871); as "Song of the Exposition" in Two Rivulets (1876); and with some revisions in Leaves of Grass (1881–82). Sheets from the pamphlet were included in some copies of the 1871 Leaves of Grass. A note at the top of the manuscript, written by Whitman's friend William Sloane Kennedy, indicates that it was used as printer's copy for the pamphlet publication.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Americans are charged with disproportionate brag and]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00003
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: 1819-1872
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A paragraph, heavily revised, expressing the opinion that the United States is the culmination of human development. A note at the bottom of the sheet, "As a Strong Bird," may refer to the poem "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free," which was first published in the New York Herald on 26 June 1872. Extracts from this poem also appeared in the Washington Evening Star on the same date, within a larger article on the commencement exercises at Dartmouth College. It more likely, however, refers to the slender volume in which the poem was published later that year, As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free. And Other Poems. This manuscript is probably part of an early draft of the preface for that volume. The poem "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free" was subsequently included in Two Rivulets (1876). After adding a new opening stanza and making additional revisions, Whitman incorporated the poem into Leaves of Grass (1881–82) under the new title "Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood." The preface was reprinted, with minor changes, as "Preface, 1872, to 'As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free'" in the 1892 volume Comple Prose Works .

  • Whitman Archive Title: ['Animals,' says George Eliot]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00091
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Three manuscript leaves and two newspaper clippings pasted to a larger backing sheet. All but one of the scraps presents an aphorism attributable to someone other than Whitman. The other, also aphoristic, is fragmentary but appears to be a draft line of verse. According to Edward F. Grier, the handwriting in the first and third paragraphs is that of the 1850s or 1860s; that of the second one seems to be the looser, more irregular writing of the 1870s.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Bravo, Paris Exposition!
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00082
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, proof with handwritten corrections
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: "Bravo, Paris Exposition!" was published in Harper's Weekly 33, 28 September 1889. It was reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) and in Leaves of Grass (1891–1892). According to a letter from Whitman to R. M. Bucke, this poem was also reprinted in the French paper "Le Temps." This proof has been pasted down to a backing sheet, rendering the verso inaccessible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Idea of a Poem]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00025
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Notes, approximately forty words, toward a poem of "celebration of the superiority of the night," perhaps related to the poem eventally titled "Night on the Prairies," first published in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass as No. 15 in the "Leaves of Grass" cluster. This manuscript has been pasted down to a backing sheet and the verso is inaccessible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [It is among these]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00090
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: It is among these, or some one of these…
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Two small scraps pasted together. On one side is a sentence describing Whitman's visits in Civil War hospitals, probably drafted for Memoranda During the War (1875–76). On the reverse are three words/fragments of words, which bear an uncertain relationship to Whitman's published writing.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Scintillations
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00115
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Scintilla
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Draft of several partial lines or trial titles, the relation of which to Whitman's published work is not known.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Shakspere-Bacon's Cipher
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00083
  • Box: bv2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Shakespeare-Bacon's Cipher
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, proof with handwritten correction
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Page proof with handwritten corrections. This poem first appeared as "Shakspere Bacon's Cipher" in The Cosmopolitan 4 (October 1887): 142. It was reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) under the title "Shakspere-Bacon's Cipher." An image of the verso is forthcoming.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Shakspere-Bacon's Cipher
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00084
  • Box: bv2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Shakespeare-Bacon's Cipher
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, proof with handwritten correction
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Proofs with handwritten corrections and additions. The poem first appeared as "Shakspere Bacon's Cipher" in The Cosmopolitan 4 (October 1887): 142. It was reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) under the title "Shakspere-Bacon's Cipher."

  • Whitman Archive Title: Thanks in Old Age
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00087
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Thanks in Old Age
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, proof with handwritten comment
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Proof with handwritten note about publication date by Whitman.

  • Whitman Archive Title: To change the book--go over the whole…
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00047
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This note of approximately fifty words contains Whitman's exhortation to himself to make "the book," presumably Leaves of Grass , "more intensely the poem of Individuality."

  • Whitman Archive Title: [write a poem on the theme]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00056
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Write a poem on the theme the great charge and repulse of the Secesh…
  • Date: between 1864 and 1890
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Short handwritten note, approximately twenty words, accompanying two pasted-down newspaper clippings. It is unknown which newspaper or newspapers published these items. The accounts describe Major General Winfield Scott Hancock's repulse of the charge led by Major General George E. Pickett at Gettysburg. No definitive connections between this manuscript and Whitman's published work have been established.

  • Whitman Archive Title: The questions involved is curious
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00451
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: The questions involved is are curious to discuss
  • Date: Between 1840 and 1860
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript deals with "Poetry fit for the New World," an idea Whitman pondered from the earliest stages of his poetic career. Edward Grier notes that the "handwriting and subject matter suggest an early date" ( Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 4:1589).

  • Whitman Archive Title: And to me each minute
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00057
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Song of Myself
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • 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.

  • Whitman Archive Title: A Soul Duet
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00014
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: probably before 1855
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Heavily revised draft of a poem unpublished in Whitman's lifetime. The regular, rhymed structure and pious theme suggest a date before the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855.

  • Whitman Archive Title: left with Andrew
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00001
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Song of Myself
  • Date: 1854 or 1855
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript shows a listing of the poems for the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , with working titles, as well as various mathematical calculations relating to the length and arrangment of the volume. It was likely composed in 1854 or early in 1855. Ed Folsom has written at length about this manuscript and its significance. See "Walt Whitman's Working Notes for the First Edition of Leaves of Grass ," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 16 (Fall 1998), 90–95. A series of draft lines on the back of this manuscript (tex.00057) relate to several of the poems that appeared in the first edition of Leaves of Grass .

  • Whitman Archive Title: armies & navies pass on the surface
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00005
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: About the 1850s or 1860s
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript, probably written in the 1850s or 1860s, contains approximately five lines toward a poem about the effects of war that is not known to have been published in Whitman's lifetime. On the reverse side of the leaf (tex.00467) are two sentences or lines, one headed "Locust," and the other headed "Sunflower," which may have contributed to a piece of Civil War-era journalism.

  • Whitman Archive Title: I am become a shroud
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00030
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • 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 .

  • Whitman Archive Title: Do you know what music
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00088
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: An Essay on the Soul
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: prose, poetry
  • Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
  • 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
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00031
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • 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").

  • Whitman Archive Title: Pictures
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00042
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Pictures
  • Date: between 1850 and 1867
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Poetry manuscript titled "Pictures," approximately six lines, heavily revised. The first few lines of this manuscript appeared, further revised, in "The Runner," first published in the 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass . The middle section of the manuscript is possibly related to "Song of the Banner at Daybreak," which was first published in 1865 in Drum-Taps . A different version of last the two lines of the manuscript appear in another poetry draft, also titled "Pictures," now in Yale University's Beinecke Library. The writing on the verso is not Whitman's.

  • Whitman Archive Title: You villain, Touch
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00002
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Song of Myself,
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • 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 poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." The prose drafted on the back of this and several other related manuscript leaves includes ideas and phrases that resemble those used in "Unnamed Lands," a poem published first in the 1860–1861 edition of Leaves of Grass .

  • Whitman Archive Title: Locust whirring they come in July
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00467
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: About the 1850s or 1860s
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript contains two written statements or observations, one about locusts and the other about sunflowers. Although the text is written with the hanging indentation characteristic of Whitman's poetry, it is unclear if these were ever intended as poetic lines. The note about locusts—" Locust whirring they come in July & are loud in August"—is similar to a description of Washington, D.C., in a piece of Civil War journalism titled "Washington in the Hot Season." In this article, published in the New-York Times on August 16, 1863, Whitman writes of the grounds around the U.S. Capitol building in the summertime and notes that there are "locusts whirring." Whether this manuscript directly contributed to this piece of journalism or not, it seems likely that it was composed in the 1850s or 1860s. On the reverse of the leaf (tex.00005) are approximately five lines toward a poem about the effects of war that was never published in Whitman's lifetime.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Advance shapes like his shape
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00028
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: Between 1854 and 1860
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: The ellipses would suggest that this is an early manuscript, probably written in the mid- to late-1850s. It is an adaptation of notes Whitman took about Egypt, almost certainly from his reading of Sir John Gardner Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians , 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1837). Related information about Sesostris appears on page 29 of the first volume in Wilkinson's collection, though Whitman may have been reading a different edition. Whitman used the information in his article "One of the Lessons Bordering Broadway: The Egyptian Museum," published in Life Illustrated on December 8, 1855. Similar descriptions of Sesostris appear in several of Whitman's other notes and manuscripts, including "Immortality was realized" and "Abraham's visit to Egypt," two sets of manuscript notes about Egypt that Edward Grier dates to between 1855 and 1860 ( Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 5:1922; 6:2022); and the notebook "women," including the fragments from that notebook that Whitman reused to create the larger page "Chronological."

  • Whitman Archive Title: [All tends to the soul]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00059
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1860
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Draft of a poem about the relationship of the soul to the material world. This manuscript contributed to the poem "Proto-Leaf," which was first published in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass and eventually titled "Starting from Paumanok."

  • Whitman Archive Title: [off, dim and filmy in their outlines]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00460
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: between 1855 and 1860
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Prose fragment, showing moderate revision, of approximately 150 words. Phrases and ideas from this manuscript were incorporated in the poem "Unnamed Lands," first published in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass . The manuscript on the reverse, tex.00030, was probably written earlier, as it contributed to a poem first published in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass and eventually titled "The Sleepers."

  • Whitman Archive Title: I cannot guess what the
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00079
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . The lines do not have any known direct relation to Whitman's published poetry. At one point, however, the manuscript was almost certainly part of "The Great Laws do not" (duk.00264), which includes draft lines that appeared in that edition. On the back of this leaf (tex.00321) is a partial draft of the poem eventually titled "Faces." Both manuscript drafts were probably originally continuous with manuscript drafts on the leaf from which this leaf was cut.

  • Whitman Archive Title: waited their due time to
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00321
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . The manuscript is a partial draft of the sixth poem in that edition, eventually titled "Faces." Draft poetic lines are written on the back of the leaf (tex.00079). Both manuscript drafts were probably originally continuous with manuscript drafts on another leaf, from which this leaf was cut.

  • Whitman Archive Title: I do not expect to see myself
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00023
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: I do not expect to see myself…
  • Date: 1870s
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Lightly revised manuscript fragment of approximately 42 words, written with hanging indentation and expressing a confidence in future popular acceptance. Connection with Whitman's published work is uncertain. Christopher Morley, in his foreword to the auction catalog Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, First Editions and Portraits of Walt Whitman (1936), writes that he believes that the manuscript "was written . . . on a piece scissored from left-over stock of the green wrappers and end-papers of the 1855 Leaves." The paper is actually more blue than green, however, and the handwriting is more consistent with a date in the 1870s, a period during which Whitman repeatedly complained about how he was treated by American magazines. This manuscript has been pasted to a backing sheet, and the verso is inaccessible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Light & the senses abdicate]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00034
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Light and the senses abdicate…
  • Date: probably about 1865
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript of approximately four heavily revised lines may have contributed to the poem "Chanting the Square Deific," first published in Sequel to Drum-Taps (1865–66).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [The ball-room was swept]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00011
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: The Ballroom was swept and the floor white…
  • Date: about 1860
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Three lines of a poem beginning "The ball-room was swept, and the floor white." The relationship between these lines and Whitman's published poetry is unknown. On the verso is a fragment of an apparent letter, which Edwin Haviland Miller dates August 1860, to Thayer and Eldridge, concerning their loan to Henry Clapp of $200.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Who shall write]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00054
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Who shall write--who tell--who paint…
  • Date: probably between 1855 and 1870
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Fragment of approximately forty words, in which the poet writes that if he "were younger & well" he would write a book containing "the lessons of one mere day and night—the picture of the sky." No connection has been established between this manuscript and any of Whitman's published works.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [I have heard spars]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00024
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1872
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Two lines, with revisions, possibly related to the poem "The Mystic Trumpeter," which was first published in the February 1872 issue of The Kansas Magazine . It also appeared in As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free (1872), Two Rivulets (1876), and subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Poem of The Woods
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00043
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Poem of the Woods
  • Date: probably between 1860 and 1880
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Notes toward a poem to be titled either "Poem of the Woods" or "Poem of the Prairies," intended for a "Chicago edition" that never materialized. Any relationship between this manuscript and Whitman's published work is unknown. The notes are written on the back of a page from Sartain's Magazine , which folded in 1852.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Poem of Triumph
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00032
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Poem of Triumph
  • Date: probably between 1860 and 1880
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Prose notes, draft lines, and trial titles for a poem or perhaps several poems about a triumphant attitude toward approaching death. One of the notes shows that Whitman considered writing a poem that would include a list of what poems are yet wanted. No relationship is known between this manuscript and Whitman's published work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [The Epos of Democracy]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00019
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: The epos of democracy…
  • Date: about 1865
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Heavily revised draft of approximately five lines. Connections between this manuscript and Whitman's published work are uncertain, but the lines bear some resemblance to the poem "Ashes of Soldiers," first published in Drum-Taps in 1865. This manuscript is pasted down and no verso image is available.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Write A Drunken Song
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00055
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Write a drunken song…
  • Date: probably between 1860 and 1875
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Note containing twelve words, wherein Whitman suggests writing "A Drunken Song." The relationship of this manuscript to Whitman's published work is unknown.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [O I think I could not be the]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00040
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 3
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: O I think I could not be the solid land…
  • Date: between 1861 and 1865
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Approximately four draft lines, showing a moderate amount of revision, for the poem "Song of the Banner at Daybreak," first published in 1865 in Drum-Taps and reprinted, with revisions, in subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass.

  • Whitman Archive Title: The Army Hospitals
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00288
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: 1863
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Partial manuscript draft of an essay about the Civil War army hospitals. From its relationship with another manuscript now at the University of Virginia (tex.00097), it is clear that this manuscript represents a prepublication stage of the article "The Great Army of the Sick," which was published in the New-York Times on February 26, 1863. Whitman later used a part of the published article (a part that has no parallel in the present manuscript) for the one-paragraph description of the "Patent Office Hospital" in Memoranda During the War (1875–76), labelled " Feb. 23. " The paragraph later appeared as "Patent-Office Hospital" in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–1883) and in Complete Prose Works (1892). Whitman's revision of the title (which he made by cutting the top of the leaf, turning it over, and writing a new title) indicates both that he originally imagined this to be the first of a series of articles and that the present manuscript was intended to serve as a printer's copy.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [to start upon]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00247
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: between 1864 and 1874
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: This manuscript fragment was originally part of a larger leaf which comprised two other fragments as well: tex.00308 and tex.00297. Before the sheet was cut into three pieces, this fragment formed the lower part. The writing it contains is related to a section headed "Fifty Army Hospitals Here—1863—Spring," a section of the article "'Tis But Ten Years Since. (Fourth Paper.)," published in the New York Weekly Graphic on February 21, 1874. Further revised, it was later published in Memoranda during the War (1875–76) as "Hospital Perplexity." This was reprinted in Two Rivulets (1876), Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83), and Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [to start upon]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00297
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: between 1864 and 1874
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript fragment was originally part of a larger leaf which comprised two other fragments as well: tex.00308 and tex.00247. Before the sheet was cut into three pieces, this fragment formed the upper part. The writing it contains is related to a section headed "Specimen of the Army Hospitals Now in and around Washington" in "Our Wounded and Sick Soldiers," an article published in the December 11, 1864 issue of the New York Times. Whitman also used this material in "Still More of the Hospitals," a section of the article "'Tis But Ten Years Since. (Fourth Paper.)," published in the New York Weekly Graphic on February 21, 1874. Further revised, it was later published in Memoranda during the War (1875–76) as "Aug., Sep., and Oct., '63—The Hospitals." This was reprinted, unchanged, in Two Rivulets (1876). Finally, it appeared as "Hospitals Ensemble" in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and in Complete Prose Works (1892). It is uncertain whether Whitman created this manuscript as he drafted material for the 1864 article or wrote it as he worked to synthesize earlier pieces for the "'Tis But Ten Years Since" series, though the latter scenario is more likely.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [They are frequently changed]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00308
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: between 1864 and 1874
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript fragment was originally part of a larger leaf which comprised two other fragments as well: tex.00297 and tex.00247. Before the sheet was cut into three pieces, this fragment formed the middle part. The writing it contains is related to a section headed "Fifty Army Hospitals Here—1863—Spring," a section of the article "'Tis But Ten Years Since. (Fourth Paper.)," published in the New York Weekly Graphic on February 21, 1874. Further revised, it was later published in Memoranda during the War (1875–76) as "Hospital Perplexity." This was reprinted in Two Rivulets (1876), Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83), and Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [hear outside the orders given]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00012
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1865
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Five partly cropped lines from a draft of the poem "A March in the Ranks Hard-Pressed, and the Road Unknown," first published in Drum-Taps in 1865. The manuscript on the reverse side, tex.00461, is perhaps related to the essay "The Real War will never get in the Books," published in Specimen Days (1882–83).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [The bivouac does not the voice of]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00461
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: between 1865 and 1883
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Two lines of verse, with revisions. The relation of these lines to Whitman's published poetry is uncertain, though in concept and imagery they echo a passage from "The Real War will never get in the Books," a prose piece that appeared in Specimen Days (1882–83). There, the poet writes that the war was not a quadrille in a ball-room. The lines on the other side of the leaf, tex.00012, are for the Drum-Taps (1865) poem "A March in the Ranks Hard-Pressed, and the Road Unknown."

  • Whitman Archive Title: For Dem Vistas
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00458
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: 1882 or before
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A brief paragraph suggesting that the unifying motif of a projected volume of miscellaneous prose pieces should be various aspects of nature viewed from the perspective of democracy. Although Whitman eventually titled his collection Specimen Days (1882–83), the present manuscript uses the working title "Mulleins & Bumble Bees," one of many that he considered over the rather long period during which he contemplated publication. In "Cedar-Plums—Names," one of the short essays in the collection, he discusses some of his difficulties with coherence and titling.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [I do not feel to write]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00228
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: I do not feel to write…
  • Date: about 1867
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This prose fragment, heavily revised, is almost certainly part of the draft material that contributed to the essay eventually titled Democratic Vistas, published as a pamphlet in 1871. This long essay was originally organized as a series of three shorter pieces, The first two of which were published in The Galaxy , under the titles "Democracy" (December 1867) and "Personalism" (May 1868).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Is it enough to keep on importing]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00232
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Is it enough to keep on importing the first class production…
  • Date: between 1868 and 1870
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Prose manuscript fragment, written on a small scrap of paper, apparently from the drafting sessions that produced Democratic Vistas, which was first published at the end of 1870 (though dated 1871). Because the scrap is pasted to a backing sheet, no image of the verso is available.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [for introductory to]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00251
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: probably between 1868 and 1876
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Fragmentary draft of an introductory essay that was apparently never published. The note at the top suggests that it was intended for some version of Democratic Vistas, which was first published in 1871, or of Memoranda during the War, which was first published in 1875–76. The idea expressed in this manuscript occurs frequently in Whitman's published writings, though never in these particular phrases.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Proud Music of the Sea-Storm
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00063
  • Box: bv10
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Proud Music of the Sea-Storm
  • Date: about 1869
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 9 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18
  • Content: Printer's copy of "Proud Music of the Sea-Storm," published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1869. In subsequent printings, the title was altered to "Proud Music of the Storm."

  • Whitman Archive Title: Proud Music of the Sea-Storm
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00102
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Proud Music of the Sea-Storm
  • Date: 1869
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, folio proof
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Folio proof of "Proud Music of the Sea-Storm" with the handwritten annotation "Atlantic Monthly, February."

  • Whitman Archive Title: Branches & sprigs of lilacs
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00013
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1870
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A note expressing Whitman's intentions for the revision of a poem or group of poems, the identity of which is uncertain. A connection to "Warble for Lilac-Time," first published in 1870, seems likely, however.

  • Whitman Archive Title: In Western Texas
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00101
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Note, approximately 25 words, about the Texan landscape. No relationship is known between this manuscript and Whitman's published work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Nevertheless it must]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00098
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 3
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Nevertheless it must be distinctly admitted…
  • Date: about 1880
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Notes about Emerson and democracy, probably toward what would become the 1880 essay "Emerson's Books, (The Shadows of Them.)," which appeared in the May 22, 1880, Boston Literary World. It was reprinted in part in the New York Tribune on May 15, 1882, as "A Democratic Criticism. By Walt Whitman." Finally, it appeared in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83). The notes on the other side, tex.00462, probably contributed to the preface Whitman wrote for the 1876 issue of Leaves of Grass and Two Rivulets as a two-volume set.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [L. of G.]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00462
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 3
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Nevertheless it must be distinctly admitted…
  • Date: about 1876
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: These fragmentary notes were probably written as Whitman drafted the preface for the publication in 1876 of Leaves of Grass and Two Rivulets as a two-volume set. The preface was reprinted in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) under the title "Preface, 1876, to L. of G. and 'Two Rivulets,' Centennial Edition." The notes on the reverse side, tex.00098, are probably related to the essay "Emerson's Books, (The Shadows of Them.)"

  • Whitman Archive Title: Songs for Lilac-times
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00045
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Songs for lilac times for 1870-71
  • Date: about 1870
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, notes
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Title, note, and verse fragment, approximately twenty-five words, probably related to the poem "Warble for Lilac-Time," which was first published in The Galaxy in May 1870. On the verso is a letter drafted in an unknown hand on behalf of the US Attorney General, dated Feb. 12, 1869.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Starry Union
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00110
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Starry Union
  • Date: probably after 1870
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: Draft lines, heavily revised, for a poem titled "Starry Union." Originally a single leaf, the top third has become detached. "Starry Union" was never published in Whitman's lifetime, though several different draft forms exist.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Among the many]; [It is not this]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00004
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 1; 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Among the many aspects of thought…; It is not this business of voting…
  • Date: about 1881
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: On one side of the leaves, Whitman explores the idea that life, with its petty concerns, is "an exercise, a training & development" for an afterlife. A note at the top possibly indicates that the poet considered developing this thought in conjunction with "From Noon to Starry Night," a cluster that first appeared in the 1881–82 edition of Leaves of Grass . Edward F. Grier suggests, alternatively, that the writing is connected with Specimen Days (1882–83), "which is full of references to stars" (Walt Whitman, Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, Edward F. Grier, ed. [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 6:2106). The writing on the reverse sides of the leaves explores the ideal roles of authors and the general public in shaping government and legislation. These notes are possibly related to Democratic Vistas, in which Whitman discusses the role of what he calls here the literary class in connection to democracy, as well as issues of voting and women's rights. The two leaves are housed and described separately at the repository.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Now, trumpeter]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00081
  • Box: bv2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: The Mystic Trumpeter
  • Date: about 1872
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Nine draft lines, uncorrected, of section 8 of "The Mystic Trumpeter," a poem first published in The Kansas Magazine in February 1872. It was reprinted in As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free (1872), Two Rivulets (1876), and subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass. On the verso, someone—perhaps a collector or archivist—jotted a note about "From Noon to Starry Night" and "The Mystic Trumpeter."

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Already as I write]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00242
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: between 1872 and 1875
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Manuscript, heavily revised, made from four scraps of paper. Two of the scraps (the second and fourth) were inscribed before being cut apart to insert the material on the third scrap. This manuscript probably represents Whitman's reworking of a passage from the "Preface" of As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free. And Other Poems (1872), which was reprinted as Preface, 1872, to "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free," (now "Thou Mother with thy Equal Brood," in permanent ed'n.) in Two Rivulets (1876), Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83), and Complete Prose Works (1892). Whitman revised the passage for use in "The War, though with two sides, really ONE IDENTITY (as struggles, furious conflicts of Nature, for final harmony.)—The Soil it bred and ripen'd from—the North as responsible for it as the South," which appeared in the "Notes" section of Memoranda During the War (1875–1876). This piece was also reprinted in Two Rivulets (1876).

  • Whitman Archive Title: As at thy Portals also Death
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00006
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1881
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Draft, with revisions, of "As at Thy Portals Also Death," which was first published in the 1881–82 edition of Leaves of Grass . A second, smaller leaf, was at some point pasted over the lines at the bottom of the first leaf, but it has become separated and is at present stored separately as "[To her, the ideal woman]."

  • Whitman Archive Title: [To her, the ideal woman]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00048
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1881
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Draft, with revisions, of the final three lines of "As at Thy Portals Also Death," which was first published in the 1881–82 edition of Leaves of Grass .

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Among the things arising out]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00298
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1874
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
  • Content: Three-page draft, heavily revised, of "Still More of the Hospitals," a section of the article "'Tis But Ten Years Since. (Fourth Paper.)," published in the New York Weekly Graphic on February 21, 1874. Further revised, it was later published in Memoranda during the War (1875–76) as "Aug., Sep., and Oct., '63—The Hospitals." Finally, it appeared as "Hospitals Ensemble" in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: Idea of New Po[em?]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00108
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1875
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Brief note outlining a poem to express modern views of myth, religion, etc. Pasted at the bottom of the leaf is a clipping, taken from an unidentified newspaper, titled "King Ludwig's Latest Whim," which describes plans to move monumental religious statues to a mountain peak overlooking Oberammergau by means of a "street locomotive." The events described in the clipping occurred in 1875. It is unknown what connection, if any, this manuscript bears to published poems, though the "idea" it outlines is one that Whitman treated frequently.

  • Whitman Archive Title: The Prairie States
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00029
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Autumn Rivulets: The Prairie States
  • Date: about 1880
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Signed manuscript, lightly revised, of the poem "The Prairie States," which was first published, in manuscript facsimile, in The Art Autograph in March 1880. It was later printed in the 1881–82 and later printings of Leaves of Grass.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [29th Mass.]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00243
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1875
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: The material in this one-page manuscript was used in the essay "A Yankee Antique," which was first published in Memoranda during the War (1875–76) and later reprinted in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and in Complete Prose Works (1892). The leaf is pasted to a backing sheet, making the reverse side inaccesssible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [—the Sacred Million]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00244
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1875
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Several trial phrases regarding the "millions" killed during the Civil War. This material appeared in "The Million Dead, too, summ'd up—The Unknown" in Memoranda during the War (1875–76), an essay later reprinted as "The Million Dead, Too, Summ'd Up" in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and Complete Prose Works (1892). The manuscript leaf is pasted to a backing sheet, making the reverse side inaccesssible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [the fighting was Saturday night]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00245
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1875
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Notes about the Battle of Chancellorsville and fragmentary draft material about the writing of Civil War histories. The draft material contributed to "A Night Battle, over a week since" in Memoranda during the War (1875–76), an essay later reprinted as "A Night Battle, Over a Week Since" in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and in Complete Prose Works (1892). The manuscript leaf is pasted to a backing sheet, making the reverse side inaccesssible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [In an adjoining ward]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00246
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1875
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Brief manuscript fragment related to "Two Brothers, one South, one North—May 28–29" in Memoranda during the War (1875–1876), an essay later reprinted as Two Brothers, one South, one North in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–1883) and in Complete Prose Works (1892). The manuscript leaf is pasted to a backing sheet, making the reverse side inaccesssible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [He died almost]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00248
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1875
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Manuscript fragment of several short sentences that contributed to the essay "A Yankee Antique," which was first published in Memoranda during the War (1875–76) and later reprinted in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and in Complete Prose Works (1892). The leaf is pasted to a backing sheet, making the reverse side inaccesssible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Private Stewart C. Glover]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00249
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1875
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: One manuscript leaf, inscribed on both sides, describing a young soldier who died after being wounded during the Battle of the Wilderness during the Civil War. Most of the writing is in an unknown hand, possibly that of "R. H. Foote," whose name appears on the manuscript. The text of this manuscript contributed to "Death of a Hero," which was first published in Memoranda during the War in 1875–76 and later reprinted in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: Serg't Harlowe
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00250
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1875
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Brief notes about Calvin Harlowe, a Civil War soldier whose death Whitman described in "A Yankee Antique," an essay first published in Memoranda during the War (1875–76) and later reprinted in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and in Complete Prose Works (1892). The leaf is pasted to a backing sheet, making the reverse side inaccesssible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: To getter up of the books—Printer and proof reader
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00105
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1876
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 2 pages, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Full handwritten instructions by Whitman for the printer and proofreader of the London reprint of Leaves of Grass (1876).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Two powerful & perhaps paradoxical]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00314
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1876
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: The idea that democracy includes the two seemingly opposite forces of individualism and group identity, expressed in this manuscript fragment, can be found in many of Whitman's published works. The comparison to centrifugal and centripetal physical forces suggests that this manuscript possibly contributed to "Nationality—(and Yet.)," which was first published in Two Rivulets (1876). It was later republished in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and in Complete Prose Works (1892). The leaf has been pasted to a backing sheet, rendering the verso inaccessible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: The tramp & strike questions
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00311
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: The Tramp and Strike Questions, notes
  • Date: about 1882
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This page of notes about the problems of American capitalism is one of several manuscripts that Whitman wrote with the intention of delivering a lecture on what he called "the tramp and strike questions." Though the lecture never materialized, a short essay based on the manuscripts was published under the title "The Tramp and Strike Questions. Part of a Lecture proposed, (never deliver'd.) " in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83). It was later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: The Tramp and Strike Questions, notes
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00312
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: The Tramp and Strike Questions, notes
  • Date: about 1882
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: These notes, jotted with apparent haste, are part of the manuscript material Whitman generated with the intention of delivering a lecture on what he called "the tramp and strike questions." Though the lecture never materialized, a short essay based on the material was published under the title "The Tramp and Strike Questions. Part of a Lecture proposed, (never deliver'd.) " in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83). It was later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Two men, apparently father & son]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00313
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Two men, apparently father and son on foot…
  • Date: between 1879 and 1882
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Brief note that records an image from Whitman's 1879 trip through Missouri and Kansas and into Colorado. Whitman used this image in "The Spanish Peaks—Evening on the Plains," which was first published in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: To the Man-of-War-Bird
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00049
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: To the Man-of-War-Bird
  • Date: about 1878
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, proof with corrections
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Clipping of "The Man-of-War-Bird," with handwritten revisions, from the November 16, 1878 Philadelphia Progress . The poem had first appeared in the London Athenaeum , on 1 April 1876. The poem was included in some copies of Leaves of Grass (1876). In the 1881–82 and later printings of Leaves of Grass it was included in the "Sea-Drift" cluster. The newspaper clipping has been pasted down and no verso image is available.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [under Personal]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00315
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Walt Whitman still remains in St. Louis, Missouri…
  • Date: 1879
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Short press release, with several revisions, written sometime in the last three months of 1879, during Whitman's stay at St. Louis with his brother Jeff, following his train trip to Colorado. No newspaper printing of this note has been located. Much of the material here did appear, however, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on December 17, 1879, in an article titled "Walt Whitman: What the Poet Does and How He Lives in St. Louis—Loafing and Inviting His Soul." See Jim McWilliams, "An Unknown 1879 Profile of Whitman," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 11.3 (1994), 141–143.

  • Whitman Archive Title: A Riddle Song
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00027
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: 1880
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 4 leaves, handwritten; printed
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: Manuscript and corrected proof of "A Riddle Song," a poem which first appeared in the Tarrytown Sunnyside Press on 3 April 1880. It was reprinted in Forney’s Progress (Philadelphia) 2 (17 April 1880): 508, and then included in the 1881–82 edition of Leaves of Grass . Also included is a cover note that describes the contents and declares that Whitman presented them to Richard Bucke on 26 May 1880.

  • Whitman Archive Title: A Riddle Song
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00097
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: 1880
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, newspaper clipping
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Clipping of the poem "A Riddle Song" probably from the Camden Daily Post, as is suggested by writing on the verso. The reference to the Tarrytown Sunnyside Press in the bottom right corner serves to credit the newspaper in which Whitman's poem first appeared.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Make a poem…
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00035
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Make a poem…
  • Date: probably after 1880
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Prose fragment suggesting a poem whose "central theme" would be "the Untellable." No relationship is known between this manuscript and Whitman's published work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Patroling Barnegat
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00041
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Patroling Barnegat
  • Date: 1880 or 1881
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Proof sheet with handwritten corrections, apparently prepared for the April 1881 publication of "Patroling Barnegat" in Harper's Monthly . The poem had been first published in The American in June 1880. It was later reprinted in Leaves of Grass (1881–82 and 1891–92).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [astronomy]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00194
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Astronomy…
  • Date: 1881 or 1882
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Two brief notes written on what appears to be a scrap from a small notebook. The note at the top of the scrap furnished an image that Whitman used in "Full-Starr'd Nights," first published in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). The other note refers to an article titled "A Study of Carlyle," published in the April 1881 issue (vol. 39, pp. 494–609) of Contemporary Review and signed "The Author of 'The Moral Influence of George Eliot.'" The article thus referred to had appeared in the February 1881 issue (vol. 39, pp. 173–185), with the signature "One who Knew Her."

  • Whitman Archive Title: Distant Sounds
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00226
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: How I Get Around and Take Notes at Sixty
  • Date: about 1881
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: The fourth and fifth leaves of the printer's copy for "How I Get Around at 60, and Take Notes. (No. 2.)", which was published in the Critic on April 9, 1881. Though he did not include this essay as a whole in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83), Whitman reprinted parts of it under different titles. The first of the sections shown here appeared as "Distant Sounds."

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Then Principal]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00303
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1881
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Two scraps, pasted together, on which are inscribed a heavily revised, partial draft of the essay first published as "The Poetry of the Future" in the February 12, 1881, issue of the North American Review. Whitman later revised and republished the essay as "Poetry To-Day in America—Shakspere—The Future" in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83). It also appeared in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Not free and naive poetry]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00304
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1881
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Manuscript fragment of the essay first published as "The Poetry of the Future" in the February 12, 1881, issue of the North American Review. Whitman later revised and republished the essay as "Poetry To-Day in America—Shakspere—The Future" in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83). It also appeared in Complete Prose Works (1892). The leaf has been pasted to a backing sheet, rendering the verso inaccessible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: By Emerson's Grave
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00198
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: By Emerson's Grave,
  • Date: 1882
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 4 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
  • Content: Three-page printer's copy of the essay "By Emerson's Grave," published in the May 6, 1882, issue of the Critic and later reprinted in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and Complete Prose Works (1892). The envelope in which Whitman sent the manuscript to the paper's editors is also included.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [I have had serious doubts]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00094
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1891
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Partial draft, heavily revised, of what appears to have been intended as a preface to a late edition of Leaves of Grass . The manuscript leaf has been pasted to a backing sheet, and the verso is inaccessible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Edgar Poe's Significance
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00326
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Edgar Poe's Significance
  • Date: 1882
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 5 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
  • Content: Printer's copy of an essay published in the June 3, 1882, issue of the Critic and later reprinted in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: Two Brooklyn boys.
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00289
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1882
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Draft of "Two Brooklyn Boys," a short piece published in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: Here is a list of the immediate family
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00215
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Family member list with birthdays, notes,
  • Date: about 1883
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: On one side of this leaf is a list of Whitman's family members, which Whitman wrote for inclusion in the introduction to Richard Maurice Bucke's 1883 biography, Walt Whitman. The writing on the reverse side is in both Whitman's and Bucke's hands and has been cancelled. It consists of draft versions of the heading for William Douglas O'Connor's The Good Gray Poet (1866), which was reprinted in the biography.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Echoes and Supplements
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00117
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: between 1884 and 1892
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Trial title, possibly for a projected sequel to Specimen Days & Collect, written on the reverse of a scrap torn from a mailing label addressed to Whitman. A note in the hand of Horace Traubel identifies the sender as T. W. Rolleston, co-author of the first book-length German translation of Leaves of Grass (1889).

  • Whitman Archive Title: The Dead Tenor
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00016
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: The Dead Tenor
  • Date: 1884
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Signed draft of "The Dead Tenor," approximately 14 lines, written on several scraps pasted together. A newspaper clipping with the death notice of Pasquale Brignoli is pasted in the bottom lefthand corner. The poem was first published on 8 November 1884 in the Critic and reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex of Leaves of Grass (1891–92). Whitman was inspired to write the poem by the death of Pasquale (or Pasqualino) Brignoli (1824–1884), a tenor who made his New York debut in 1854 and remained a popular favorite for twenty years. According to Horace Traubel, Whitman appears to have known Brignoli. On the verso can be found various writings, including an earlier draft of The Dead Tenor, part of a letter to Whitman from Charles F. Blanch, and an unidentified prose jotting by Whitman.

  • Whitman Archive Title: As one by one withdraw the lofty actors
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00007
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: 1885
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Printer's copy, annotated and lightly corrected, of the poem first published under the title "As One by One Withdraw the Lofty Actors" in Harper's Weekly , 16 May 1885. The poem was reprinted as "Grant" in the Critic , 15 August 1885 and revised as "Death of General Grant" in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888).

  • Whitman Archive Title: Lecture by Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00328
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: 1886
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: about 16 leaves, newspaper clipping
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25
  • Content: Notes for the lecture on the death of Abraham Lincoln that Whitman delivered in Philadelphia on April 15, 1886. The notes consist of clippings from earlier printings of the lecture with a few handwritten revisions. The lecture was first published as "Death of Lincoln" in the New York Sun on February 12, 1876. A revised version appeared as "A Poet on the Platform" in the New York Daily Tribune on April 15, 1879. In Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83) and in Complete Prose Works (1892) it was titled "Death of Abraham Lincoln. Lecture deliver'd in New York, April 14, 1879—in Philadelphia, '80—in Boston, '81. " The notes are mounted in a bound volume along with the letter that Whitman sent with them to Thomas Donaldson, a note written by Donaldson, an engraving of Whitman, and a ticket to a performance of the lecture on April 14, 1887.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Thanks in old age]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00074
  • Box: bv2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Thanks in Old Age
  • Date: about 1887
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Heavily revised draft of approximately seven lines of the poem "Thanks in Old Age," which was first published on 24 November 1887 in the Philadelphia Press . It was reprinted in the New York World on 23 November 1890 under the title "Walt Whitman's Thanksgiving" and in the so-called deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass (1891–92) under its original title. This manuscript has been pasted to a backing sheet and no image of the verso is available.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Seems to me I may dare to claim a deep native]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00206
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 3
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Partial draft of "Note at End of Complete Poems and Prose," which was published in Complete Poems & Prose (1888) and not reprinted during Whitman's lifetime. No image of the manuscript's verso is available.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Death of Carlyle
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00210
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 3
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: 1881
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 7 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
  • Content: Incomplete printer's copy of "The Death of Carlyle," which was published in the February 12, 1881, issue of the Critic . It also appeared, under the title "The Dead Carlyle," in the Boston Literary World on the same date. It was later reprinted as "Death of Thomas Carlyle" in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83). The accompanying authentication certificate, signed by Critic editor Jeannette Gilder, mentions that the missing final page of the manuscript bore Whitman's signature.

  • Whitman Archive Title: The Conscience - the moral one,
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00208
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 3
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: The Conscience - the moral one,
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: This manuscript fragment regarding the importance of the spiritual aspect of human consciousness is probably part of a draft of "A Lingering Note" in "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks." The essay was first published in November Boughs (1888). The leaf has been pasted to a backing sheet, rendering the verso inaccessible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [for the Notes]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00221
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: For the notes…
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This short note refers to a passage in the third edition of Edward FitzGerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia, published in 1872. Whitman quotes stanza 66 of FitzGerald's work in his essay "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," which was first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). He had apparently intended to include, as a footnote to his quotation, the next three stanzas of the Rubáiyát, but these do not appear in the article as it was printed.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Halcyon Days
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00072
  • Box: bv2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf,
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Heavily revised draft, approximately eleven lines, of "Halcyon Days," which was first published in the 29 January 1888 issue of the New York Herald . One the reverse is a letter from Fred W. Waggert, dated "4th June 1887."

  • Whitman Archive Title: Life
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00033
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Life
  • Date: 1888
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A draft, lightly revised, of the poem "Life," which was first published in the New York Herald on April 15, 1888. On the verso appears the handwritten date: June 8. '88.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [George Fox]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00038
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 3
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: November Boughs
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript fragment seems to have functioned partly as reading notes and partly as draft material for the "George Fox (and Shakspere)" section of "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks." The essay was first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: Now precedent songs, Farewell
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00092
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 1
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Now Precedent Songs, Farewell
  • Date: 1888
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: A draft of the poem "Now Precedent Songs, Farewell," which first appeared in November Boughs (1888) and was reprinted in the 1891–92 printing of Leaves of Grass .

  • Whitman Archive Title: [or even scientific values, having]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00276
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 3
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: …or even scientific values, having done their office…
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript fragment is a partial draft of "George Fox (and Shakspere.)", the final section of "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," an essay first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [even in the old attack]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00213
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Even in the old attack and 6th or 7th recurrence…
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Heavily corrected draft of a phrase that appears at the end of the "Prefatory Note" section of "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," an essay first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1891–1892). The draft is written on what was apparently a book wrapper. The printed text on the inside of the wrapper is from the Seventh Annual Report of the Dante Society, which was dated May 15, 1888.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [The following are but casual fragments]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00216
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: The following are but casual fragments...
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A small scrap on which is written a heavily revised sentence of the "Prefatory Note" in "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," an essay first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1891–1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [for Hospital article]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00218
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: For hospital article…
  • Date: probably 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Notes, written on an opened-up envelope addressed to Whitman and postmarked August 1884, apparently indicating the page numbers of Specimen Days & Collect (1882–1883) on which appeared anecdotes that Whitman hoped to incorporate into an article about Civil War hospitals. Such an article, which uses some but not all of the anecdotes, appeared under the title "Army Hospitals and Cases. Memoranda at the Time, 1863–66" in Century Illustrated Magazine 36 (October 1888), 825–830. When it was revised and reprinted in November Boughs (1888) as Last of the War Cases: Memorandized at the time, Washington, 1865–'66, the material from Specimen Days & Collect was omitted. This version was also reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: To get the final lilt of songs
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00086
  • Box: bv8
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Sands at Seventy: To Get the Final Lilt of Songs
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Manuscript, heavily revised, of "To Get the Final Lilt of Songs," which was first published in the April 16, 1888 issue of the New York Herald under the title "The Final Lilt of Songs." It was later included, under its final title, in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to the so-called deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass (1891–92).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [—while so many kings, generals, philosophers, poets]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00203
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript fragment, written as a series of phrases interspersed with names and dates, is an early draft toward the introductory paragraph of "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," an essay that was first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [While the great composers Beethoven]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00204
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: This manuscript fragment is an early draft of material Whitman used in the introductory paragraph of "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," an essay that was first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). See also tex.00204, a closely related manuscript. The leaf has been pasted to a backing sheet, rendering the verso inaccessible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Elias Hicks]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00273
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Brief notes on the reigns of Frederick the Great and King George III, labelled for use in "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," an essay that was first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: MY 71st YEAR
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00036
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: MY 71st YEAR
  • Date: 1889
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, proof with revisions
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Corrected proof of "My 71st Year," which appeared in the November 1889 issue of The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine .

  • Whitman Archive Title: Supplement-Sands
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00111
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Title suggestions for works, notes
  • Date: about 1884
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: The words "Supplement-Sands" are written in blue crayon on a scrap of paper, apparently torn from a letter. The verso features the beginning of the letter from an autograph seeker, written in Lisbon, NH, 28 January 1884.

  • Whitman Archive Title: ?To the ?sunset Breeze
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00051
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: To the Sunset Breeze, Manuscript early draft
  • Date: about 1889
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: A heavily revised early draft of "To the Sun-set Breeze," a poem first published in Lippincott's Magazine as "To the Sunset Breeze," in December 1890. It later appeared in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) and, as part of the "Good-Bye my Fancy" annex, in the so-called deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass (1891–92).

  • Whitman Archive Title: To the sunset breeze
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00053
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: To the Sunset Breeze, Manuscript intermediate draft
  • Date: 1889
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Heavily revised intermediate draft, approximately sixteen lines, of "To the Sun-set Breeze," which was published in Lippincott's Magazine as "To the Sunset Breeze" in December 1890, in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) and, as part of the "Good-Bye my Fancy" annex, in the so-called deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass (1891–92).

  • Whitman Archive Title: To the Year 1889
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00050
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: To the Year 1889
  • Date: 1889
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, proof
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Page proof with handwritten information on the poem's initial publication in the Critic on 5 January 1889. Retitled "To the Pending Year," it was included in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) and, as part of the "Good-Bye my Fancy" annex, in the so-called deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass (1891–92).

  • Whitman Archive Title: Sail out for good, Eidólon yacht
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00067
  • Box: bv6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Good-bye My Fancy: Sail out for Good, Eidólon Yacht
  • Date: 1890
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Heavily revised draft, nine lines, of "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht!" which was first published in Lippincott's Magazine in March 1891. It was reprinted in Good-bye My Fancy (1891). Whitman's note at the bottom calls the manuscript rough crude outlines and dates it July 25 1890. Included with the manuscript is a three-page letter to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, dated 1878, drafted on the reverse sides of letters from Berry Young and Richard M. Bucke.

  • Whitman Archive Title: To the Sun-Set Breeze
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00052
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: 6
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: To the Sunset Breeze, Manuscript late draft
  • Date: about 1890
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Printer's copy, sixteen lines, with minor revisions. "To the Sun-set Breeze" was first published in Lippincott's Magazine as "To the Sunset Breeze" in December 1890. It later appeared in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) and, as part of the "Good-Bye my Fancy" annex, in the so-called deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass (1891–92).

  • Whitman Archive Title: [WW's Nov. Boughs]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00272
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Date: about 1890
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A one-page draft of a footnote for "A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads," which was first published in the so-called deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass in 1891. Although Whitman created the essay from several previously published pieces, the note inscribed on this manuscript had not appeared in print before.

  • Whitman Archive Title: For Queen Victoria's Birth-Day
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00020
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: For Queen Victoria's Birth-Day
  • Date: about 1891
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: Lightly revised printer's copy of "For Queen Victoria's Birthday," which was published in Good-Bye My Fancy in 1891. In the same folder are an uncorrected proof sheet and an envelope, which is inscribed with a note in Whitman's hand, indicating that he presented them together as a gift to an unknown recipient. No images of the proof sheet are available.

  • Whitman Archive Title: On, on the Same, ye Jocund Twain, Manuscript
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00071
  • Box: bv2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: On, on the Same, ye Jocund Twain, Manuscript
  • Date: about 1891
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Heavily revised draft, approximately fourteen lines, of "On, on the Same, Ye Jocund Twain!," a poem first published in Good-Bye My Fancy in 1891.

  • Whitman Archive Title: On, on the Same, ye Jocund Twain, Proof with handwritten corrections
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00080
  • Box: bv2
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: On, on the Same, ye Jocund Twain, Proof with handwritten corrections
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Heavily revised proof sheet of "On, on the Same, Ye Jocund Twain!" The poem first appeared in Good-Bye My Fancy in 1891. This proof has been pasted to another sheet and no verso image is available.

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