A Sun-Bath—Nakedness | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: A Sun-Bath—Nakedness
Whitman Archive ID: ucb.00050
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Walt Whitman Collection, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
Box: 1
Folder: 65; 66; 67
Repository Title: A Sun-Bath—Nakedness
Date: 1878
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 6 leaves, handwritten
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Content: Heavily revised prose notes written on various scraps of paper, including a letter fragment and an envelope addressed to Whitman, some of which have been pasted together to create larger sheets. Together these leaves comprise a nearly complete draft of "A Sun-Bath—Nakedness," which Whitman published as part of Specimen Days & Collect (1882–1883) and later collected in Complete Prose Works (1892). Though Whitman dates a portion of these manuscript notes July 18, 1878, this prose piece was published in Specimen Days under the date, August 27, 1877. The verso of the third leaf contains a fragment of a letter to Whitman from an unknown correspondent, whose closing signature has been obscured. This item is catalogued as three separate manuscripts in the Livezey collection; however, as they seem to form a continuous and nearly complete draft, we have grouped them together as one item.