The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Unidentified Correspondents, 31 March 1885
Date: March 31, 1885
Whitman Archive ID: loc.04931
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Stefan Schöberlein, Ian Faith, Kyle Barton, and Nicole Gray
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328 Mickle st
Camden New Jersey
March 31 '85
Dear Sirs
In answer to yours of March 271
—Walt Whitman
The first Leaves of Grass was printed in 1855 in Brooklyn New York—small quarto 9 by 12 inches, 95 pages—in the type called "English"—was not stereotyped—800 copies were struck off on a hand press by Andrew Rome,2 in whose job office the work was all done—the author himself setting some of the type.
2d ed'n, 16 mo was in 1856; 3d. 12 mo. 1860: 4th ditto. 1867: 5th 1871; 6th 1876 two Vols. "Leaves of Grass" and "Two Rivulets"; 7th 1881.
Notes:
1. No letter to Whitman from March 27, 1885, appears to be extant. [back]
2. Andrew Rome, perhaps with the assistance of his brother Tom, printed Whitman's first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855) in a small shop at the intersection of Fulton and Cranberry in Brooklyn. It was likely the first book the firm ever printed. [back]