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Title: Leaves of Grass. Democratic Vistas. The Passage to India

Creator: unknown [unsigned in original]

Date: November 11, 1870

Whitman Archive ID: anc.00072

Source: The New York Times 11 November 1870: 2. The electronic text for this file was prepared by Whitman Archive staff, who transcribed the text from a representation of the original (e.g., digital scan or other electronic reproduction, microfilm copy). For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the reviews, see our statement of editorial policy.

Contributors to digital file: Natalie O'Neal, Elizabeth Lorang, Vanessa Steinroetter, and Todd Stabley


Leaves of Grass. Democratic Vistas. The Passage to India.

These books have just been reprinted, and are now once more accessible to the admirers of Mr. Walt Whitman and his poetry. The poet and his works are so far identical, that it is almost impossible to discuss the latter without a full knowledge of the former, and this we do not happen to possess. We cannot recommend Mr. Walt Whitman to the general reader—indeed, his books are only fit for those who make researches in literature not suited to family reading. His "unconventionality," as a critic well said two or three years ago, "is nothing more than the unconventionality of the man who considers clothes conventional, and goes about without them." The volumes will, however, be looked after by hunters of curiosities in the book world.


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