Catalog of Unlocated Walt Whitman Manuscripts

Whitman Archive Title: Not to Dazzle
Whitman Archive ID: med.00729
Date: Before or early in 1855
Genre: prose, poetry
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown,
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Lines from this manuscript were used in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass . The sentence that begins "The soul has that measureless pride..." also later became part of the poem "Song of Prudence." Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition, but it was probably written before or early in 1855.

Whitman Archive Title: The regular time
Whitman Archive ID: med.00731
Date: Between 1840 and 1860
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: A very short manuscript, known only from a transcription in Notes & Fragments , ed. Richard Maurice Bucke (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 122. Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances or date of its composition, but based on other manuscript transcriptions that Richard Maurice Bucke printed with this manuscript, Edward Grier infers that the composition date is likely the 1840s or 1850s.

Whitman Archive Title: Write a new burial service
Whitman Archive ID: med.00733
Date: 1850s
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: A manuscript comprised of two short sentences, known only from a transcription in Notes & Fragments , ed. Richard Maurice Bucke (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 56. Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances or date of its composition, but Edward Grier argues that the "liturgical intention" of this manuscript suggests a date in the 1850s ( Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 4:1313).

Whitman Archive Title: Walter Whitman, of Suffolk co.
Whitman Archive ID: med.00724
Date: September 3, 1841
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: This manuscript consists of a note, handwritten by Whitman, in a visitor's book for Manhattan Public School #13. Whitman's entry, dated September 3, 1841, is one of several on the page. A photostat of the page can be found in Florence Bernstein Freedman, Walt Whitman Looks at the Schools (New York: King's Crown Press, 1950): facing page 32.

Whitman Archive Title: Jan 12. Walter Whitman
Whitman Archive ID: med.00723
Date: January 12, 1842
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: This manuscript consists of a note, handwritten by Whitman, in a visitor's book for Manhattan Public School #13. Whitman's entry is one of several on the page. The entry is dated January 12, and it can be inferred from the surrounding dates that the year is 1842. A photostat of the page can be found in Florence Bernstein Freedman, Walt Whitman Looks at the Schools (New York: King's Crown Press, 1950): facing page 33.

Whitman Archive Title: [Poem of the Drum]
Whitman Archive ID: med.00732
Date: about 1861
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: A brief note of twenty-seven words, sketching the idea for a poem "that shall be alive with the stirring and beating of a drum." The current location of this manuscript is unknown, and its contents are attested only by a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in Notes and Fragments (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 179. Whitman's poetry contains many references to the beating of drums, so one cannot be certain which, if any, of the poems is related to this manuscript. The most likely candidate, however, is "Beat! Beat! Drums!" Whitman's only poem that not only mentions drums but treats them as its central subject. First published simultaneously in the 28 September 1861 issues of Harper's Weekly and the New York Leader, it later appeared in Drum-Taps (1865) and in subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass.

Whitman Archive Title: Poem of the Sunlight
Whitman Archive ID: med.00779
Date: unknown
Genre: prose, poetry
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Brief note of just eight words, outlining the possibility of a "Poem of the Sunlight." A transcription of this manuscript, the current location of which is unknown, was published by Richard Maurice Bucke in Notes and Fragments (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 174. Edward F. Grier, editor of Whitman's Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 4:1383, suggests that this manuscript might be related to the poem "Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun," which was first published in the 1865 volume Drum-Taps.

Whitman Archive Title: One obligation of great fresh
Whitman Archive ID: med.00737
Date: Before or early in 1855
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances or date of its composition. The discussion of "the poetic quality" and the punctuation (at least as rendered by earlier editors) are similar to the preface to the 18555 Leaves of Grass , so it is possible that the composition date was before or early in 1855..

Whitman Archive Title: For example, whisper
Whitman Archive ID: med.00726
Date: Before 1855
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Because this manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances or date of its composition, but based on the content it seems likely that it was written between 1850 and 1855, when Whitman was composing his first edition of Leaves of Grass . The manuscript note about the "superb wonder of a blade of grass" may relate to similar statements in the prose preface and the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." In Notes and Fragments , Richard Maurice Bucke transcribes the manuscript with "Enter into the thoughts of" (nyp.00112) and describes it as "a very early note, the paper torn and almost falling to pieces." The date of the manuscript is almost certainly before 1855.

Whitman Archive Title: Literature it is certain would
Whitman Archive ID: med.00738
Date: Undated
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances or date of its composition. Edward Grier believed that it "probably was written in the 1850s."

Whitman Archive Title: 1848 New Orleans
Whitman Archive ID: med.00725
Date: between 1848 and 1887
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Notes on Whitman's experience in New Orleans in 1848. Whitman used some of these notes in "New Orleans in 1848," first published as "New Orleans in 1848: Walt Whitman Gossips of His Sojourn Here Years Ago as a Newspaper Writer: Notes of His Trip Up the Mississippi and to New York" in the New Orleans Daily Picayune , 25 January 1887. This essay was included in November Boughs (1888), and collected in Complete Prose Works (1892). This manuscript is known only from a transcription published by Emory Holloway in The Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman (Doubleday, Page & Company, 1921), 77–78.

Whitman Archive Title: The new theologies bring forward
Whitman Archive ID: med.00746
Date: Before or early in 1855
Genre: prose, poetry
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: This manuscript, known only from a transcription published by Clifton Joseph Furness in Walt Whitman's Workshop: A Collection of Unpublished Manuscripts (Harvard University Press, 1928), 43, includes lines that appeared, in a slightly altered form, in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , and later in the poem eventually titled "By Blue Ontario's Shore," first published in the 1856 edition of Leaves as "Poem of Many in One." The date of the manuscript is therefore probably before or early in 1855.

Whitman Archive Title: Why need genius and the
Whitman Archive ID: med.00741
Date: About 1855
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: The content of this manuscript, which is known only from a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in Notes and Fragments (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 103, appeared in slightly revised form in the prose preface to the 1855 first edition of Leaves of Grass . The date of composition is therefore probably just before 1855.

Whitman Archive Title: [Breast Sorrel]
Whitman Archive ID: med.00775
Date: before 1859
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: A brief list, which Grier suggests could be trial titles for "Calamus.". However, this manuscript is specifically suggestive of "Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone," in which Whitman writes about "Breast-sorrel and pinks of love"—both phrases which can be linked to this manuscript. First published as "Calamus. 13" in Leaves of Grass (1860), this poem appeared in later editions of Leaves of Grass as "Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone", and with slight changes in the text. This manuscript is known only from a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in Notes and Fragments (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 164.

Whitman Archive Title: Poem of the Universalities
Whitman Archive ID: med.00735
Date: Between 1850 and 1860
Genre: prose, poetry
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Notes, apparently written as two paragraphs, which record ideas for a poem or poems. A transcription of this manuscript, the current location of which is unknown, was published by Richard Maurice Bucke in Notes and Fragments (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 142. The last two phrases of this manuscript were used in the "Poem of Joys," first published in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass : "The memory of only one look—the boy lingering and waiting" (p. 261). The poem was retitled "Poems of Joy" in the 1867 edition. In 1871, when the poem appeared in the volume Passage to India, this line had been deleted and the original title restored. Some copies of the 1871–1872 edition of Leaves of Grass include the sheets from that volume. In subsequent editions, the poem was retitled "A Song of Joys."

Whitman Archive Title: I want no more of
Whitman Archive ID: med.00782
Date: Before or early in 1855
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: The language and ideas in this manuscript are reminiscent of phrases and ideas Whitman used in the preface to the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass , suggesting that this manuscript was composed before or early in 1855. Compare, in particular, the following passages from that edition: "the air they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors" (p. iii); "the President's taking off his hat to them not they to him" (p. iii); and "take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men" (p. vi). The manuscript has not been located and is known only from a transcription in Walt Whitman's Workshop , ed. Clifton J. Furness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928), 55.

Whitman Archive Title: [Let others say what they]
Whitman Archive ID: med.00783
Date: about 1855
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: This one-sentence manuscript, expressing the opinion that "all the military and naval personnel of the States must conform to the sternest principles of Dem[ocracy]," is known only from a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in Notes and Fragments (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 55. The sentiment and phrasing of the manuscript are similar to statements Whitman made in "Democracy," an essay first published in the December 1867 issue of The Galaxy. When in 1871, Whitman combined this and two other essays to form the pamphlet-length essay Democratic Vistas, he elaborated the point with a note declaring "the whole present system of officering [. . .] a monstrous exotic." It is also possible that the present manuscript represents a draft fragment that contributed the "Preface" to the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855), which contains a passing reference to the belief that no "detail of the army or navy [. . .] can long elude the [. . .] instinct of American standards."

Whitman Archive Title: The test
Whitman Archive ID: med.00727
Date: Before or early in 1855
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: The lines in this manuscript likely contributed to lines of the poem that would eventually be titled "Song of Myself." The date of the manuscript is therefore probably before or early in 1855.

Whitman Archive Title: Breathjuice
Whitman Archive ID: med.00728
Date: Before or early in 1855
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: This list may have contributed indirectly to the ideas found in what became the second section of the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." Those lines deal with breath, scents, and sexuality, all of which are suggested by the terms in this manuscript. Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances or date of its composition, but it seems likely that it was written before or early in 1855.

Whitman Archive Title: Do you ask me
Whitman Archive ID: med.00730
Date: Between 1850 and 1870
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: As the physical manuscript has not been located, the composition date is difficult to determine. The manuscript's language and phrasing resembles that of the early editions of Leaves of Grass, so it likely that it was written in the 1850s or 1860s.

Whitman Archive Title: such a thing as ownership
Whitman Archive ID: med.00740
Date: Before or early in 1855
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: A manuscript known only from a transcription published by Clifton Joseph Furness in Walt Whitman's Workshop: A Collection of Unpublished Manuscripts (Harvard University Press, 1928), 45. Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances or date of its composition, but Edward Grier speculates that it was written in period leading up to the publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 because "the idea expressed is one that occupied [Whitman's] mind while he was preparing" that edition. See Grier, ed. Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts (New York University, 1984), 1:120.

Whitman Archive Title: The Katy-did works her
Whitman Archive ID: med.00901
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: The language in this manuscript is similar to the following line from the first poem in the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass , eventually titled "Song of Myself": "Where the katydid works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over the well;" (1855, p. 37). Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition, but it is likely that it was written in the early 1850s as Whitman was preparing materials for the first edition of Leaves of Grass .

Whitman Archive Title: What babble is this about
Whitman Archive ID: med.00902
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: The language in this manuscript is similar to the following line from first poem in first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass , eventually titled "Song of Myself": "What blurt is it about virtue and about vice?" (1855, p. 28). Because this manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition, but it is possible that it was written in the early 1850s as Whitman was preparing materials for the first edition of Leaves of Grass .

Whitman Archive Title: I tell you greedy smoucher
Whitman Archive ID: med.00903
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: The language in this manuscript is similar to the following line from the poem that would eventually be titled "Song of Myself": "By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms" (1855, p. 29). Ideas and words from this manuscript are also similar to ideas and words that appeared in the preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass . See, for instance, the line: "the melancholy prudence of the abandonment of such a great being as a man is to the toss and pallor of years of moneymaking with all their scorching days and icy nights and all their stifling deceits and underhanded dodgings, or infinitessimals of parlors, or shameless stuffing while others starve . . " (1855, p. x). Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition, but it is possible that it was written in the early 1850s as Whitman was preparing materials for the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . In his transcription of the manuscript, Richard Maurice Bucke paired it with another manuscript, "Remember that the clock and" (duk.00298).

Whitman Archive Title: What babble is this about
Whitman Archive ID: med.00904
Date: Between 1850 and 1867
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Language in this manuscript is similar to the following line from the first poem in the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass , eventually titled "Song of Myself": "Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of the brush;" (1855, p. 36). Language in this manuscript is also similar to a line in the long manuscript draft poem, unpublished in Whitman's lifetime, titled "Pictures." The line in "Pictures" reads: "And there, rude grave‑mounds in California—and there a path worn in the grass." The first several lines of "Pictures" (not including this line) were revised and published as "My Picture-Gallery" in The American in October 1880. The poem was later published in Leaves of Grass as part of the "Autumn Rivulets" cluster (1881, p. 310). This manuscript may relate to the poem "A Farm Picture," published in Leaves of Grass in 1867, particularly the line: "A sun-lit pasture field, with cattle and horses feeding" (1867, p. 46). This manuscript may relate to the poem titled "A Song of Joys," which first appeared in the 1860 Leaves of Grass as "Poem of Joys." A similar line in that poem reads: "O the joy of my spirit! It is uncaged! It darts like lightning!" (1860, p. 259). Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition. Although Bucke has grouped the lines together in his transcription, there is also a possibility that they represent three separate manuscripts.

Whitman Archive Title: I entertain all the aches
Whitman Archive ID: med.00909
Date: Before or early in 1855
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Phrasing and imagery in this manuscript are reminiscent of phrases and ideas Whitman used in the first poem in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , ultimately titled "Song of Myself." Compare these lines from that edition: "I lean and loafe at my ease . . . . observing a spear of summer grass" and "Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes out of its ribs" (1855, pp. 13, 36). Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition, but it is possible that it was written in the early 1850s as Whitman was preparing materials for the first edition of Leaves of Grass .

Whitman Archive Title: Where the boys dive and
Whitman Archive ID: med.00910
Date: Before or early in 1855
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: The phrasing and imagery in this manuscript are reminiscent of the following line of the first poem in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , ultimately titled "Song of Myself": "Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon" (1855, p. 37). Because the manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition, but it is possible that it was written in the early 1850s as Whitman was preparing materials for the first edition of Leaves of Grass .

Whitman Archive Title: The Elder Brother of the
Whitman Archive ID: med.00911
Date: Before or early in 1855
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: The phrasing and imagery in this manuscript are reminiscent of the following line of the first poem in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , ultimately titled "Song of Myself": "And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own" (1855, p. 16). Because this manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances of its composition, but it is possible that it was written in the early 1850s as Whitman was preparing materials for the first edition of Leaves of Grass .

Whitman Archive Title: If you have in you
Whitman Archive ID: med.00745
Date: between 1854 and 1870
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: This manuscript, the current location of which is not known, was published by Clifton J. Furness in Walt Whitman's Workshop (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928), 44. Edward Grier notes that Whitman visited hospitals as early as 1854, "beginning with visits to sick omnibus drivers whom he knew" ( Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 6:2042). The manuscript was most likely created sometime between 1854 and the years immediately following the Civil War. No connection between this manuscript and Whitman's published works has been established.

Whitman Archive Title: In Future Leaves of Grass
Whitman Archive ID: med.00784
Date: 1855–1871
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Notes on a future edition of Leaves of Grass in which Whitman insists that the "divine style" is one without ornament. In the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , Whitman writes about literary ornaments, concluding that "most works are most beautiful without ornament." Whitman reworked some of these ideas on ornament and they appear in the poem, "Suggestions," which initially appeared in Leaves of Grass (1860) as "Says." This poem was retained in Leaves of Grass until 1872 and thereafter was excluded. This manuscript is known only from a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in Notes and Fragments (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 69.

Whitman Archive Title: Rel ? outset
Whitman Archive ID: med.00776
Date: between 1855 and 1868
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: A transcription of this manuscript appeared in Clifton Joseph Furness's Walt Whitman's Workshop: A Collection of Unpublished Manuscripts (Harvard University Press, 1928), 40. Its current location is unknown. The manuscript begins, "First I wish you to realize well that our boasted knowledege, precious and manifold as it is, sinks into niches and corners, before the infinite knowledge of the unknown," a statement reminiscent of the following line from "Poem of the Road" (1856): "All religion, all solid things, arts, governments—all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the processions of souls along the grand roads of the universe." This poem was eventually retitled "Song of the Open Road." The last part of the manuscript describes, as a metaphor for human attempts to articulate "the spiritual world," a worm "on a twig reaching out in the immense vacancy time and again, trying point after point." This image is one Whitman developed in the poem "A Noiseless Patient Spider," first published in the October 1868 issue of The Broadway, A London Magazine as the third of four numbered poems grouped under the title "Whispers of Heavenly Death."

Whitman Archive Title: [June 26 '59]
Whitman Archive ID: med.00774
Date: about 1859
Genre: prose, poetry
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Edward F. Grier includes a transcription of this missing manuscript in Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts (New York University, 1984), 405–410. Grier's transcription is pieced together from "photostats of six surviving pages" (held in the Harned collection at the Library of Congress) and from two partial transcriptions, made by Emory Holloway and currently held at the University of Kansas, as well as Clifton Joseph Furness's Walt Whitman's Workshop: A Collection of Unpublished Manuscripts (Harvard University Press, 1928) and Emory Holloway's The Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman (Doubleday, Page & Company, 1921). This manuscript includes an early draft of "In Paths Untrodden," first published as the first section of "Calamus" in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass . Also included in this manuscript is a draft of "That Shadow My Likeness," first published in New-York Saturday Press 4 February 1860 as "Poemet." This poem later appeared as "Calamus No. 40," Leaves of Grass (1860); as "That Shadow My Likeness," Leaves of Grass (1867); and, with slight changes in the text, in Leaves of Grass (1881–1882). Other portions of this manuscript are suggestive of "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking", first published in New-York Saturday Press (24 December 1859) as "A Child's Reminiscence." This poem later appeared as "A Word Out of the Sea," Leaves of Grass (1860); as "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," in "Sea-Shore Memories," Passage to India (1871); and finally in "Sea-Drift," Leaves of Grass (1881–1882).

Whitman Archive Title: The East
Whitman Archive ID: med.00786
Date: about 1882
Genre: prose, poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: An original manuscript leaf that was tipped into a copy of the Author's Manuscript Edition of The Complete Writings of Whitman, published by Putnam in 1902. The manuscript is a draft leaf which comprises a portion of "How I Still Get Around at Sixty and Take Notes. No. 6," Critic (15 July 1882). Whitman later retitled this piece and reprinted it as "Hours for the Soul" in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–1883) before including it in Complete Prose Works (1892). The manuscript incorporates three lines from "A Broadway Pageant," a poem which first appeared as "The Errand-Bearers," Brooklyn Daily Times (27 June 1860). Whitman revised the poem as "A Broadway Pageant (Reception Japanese Embassy, June 16, 1860)" in Drum-Taps (1865); reprinted it in Leaves of Grass (1867) and New York Citizen (5 September 1868). The poem first appeared under its final title in the 1871–1872 edition of Leaves of Grass .

Whitman Archive Title: [His theory is]
Whitman Archive ID: med.00780
Date: about 1883
Genre: prose
Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: Manuscript known only from a transcription published in Wake 7 (Autumn 1948), 10. At that time, the manuscript was in the private collection of Milton Einstein; its current whereabouts are unknown. The contents of the manuscript set forth the "theory . . . that there are two natures in Walt Whitman," one full of "benevolence tenderness and sympathy" and another "far sterner," encompassing "things evil." Whitman wrote this passage for Maurice Bucke's 1883 biography Walt Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay), where the words are put in the mouth of an unnamed acquaintance, a "distant relative" of the poet (56).

Catalog of Unlocated Walt Whitman Manuscripts

Individual items at this repository