Content:
These five leaves remain from what was originally a six-leaf manuscript (a note at the top of the first leaf reads, in Whitman's hand, "these six pages all one piece") of "Fancies at Navesink," an eight-poem cycle which was first published in the August 1885 issue of
Nineteenth Century
. The poems included are "The Pilot in the Mist," "Had I the Choice," "Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning," "Proudly the Flood Comes In," "By That Long Scan of Waves," and "Then Last of All." These leaves are bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."
Whitman Archive Title: [Nor rivers' bays' and ocean]
Content:
Draft lines for "Fancies at Navesink," first published in
The Nineteenth Century
(August 1885. The verso of contains draft and trial lines for "Of That Blithe Throat of Thine," first published in
Harper's Monthly Magazine
(January 1885).
Content:
A late notebook with notes for poem ideas, trial titles, addresses, quotations, and other material, some of which is not in Whitman's hand (see surfaces 13, 29, 36 and 38). A few of the entries contributed to published pieces of poetry. Surfaces 21 and 24 include trial titles for "Fancies at Navesink," first published in
The Nineteenth Century
(August 1885), and reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to
Leaves of Grass
(1888). Surface 32 includes a note to "write a poem . . . to be call'd Yonnondio." Whitman first published a poem under this title in the
Critic
(26 November 1887). The poem was reprinted in "Sands at Seventy," an annex to the 1888 edition of
Leaves of Grass
, and was retained in the 1892 edition. Surface 40 contains, among other notes, a cancelled line reading "yet my soul-dearest leaves—the hardest and the last," which appeared, nearly verbatim, as the closing line of "You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me," first published along with three other poems in
Lippincott's Magazine
(November 1887) under the general title, "November Boughs." These four poems were reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to
Leaves of Grass
(1888).
Content:
An oversized proof of "Fancies at Navesink," a group of poems first published in
1885. The poems in this cluster are: "The Pilot in the
Mist,"
"Had I the Choice,"
"You Tides with Ceaseless
Swell,"
"Last of Ebb, and Daylight
Waning,"
"Proudly the Flood Comes
In,"
"By That Long Scan of
Waves," and "Then Last of All." In this proof, the poems "Last of Ebb, and Daylight
Waning" and "And
Yet Not You Alone" are not separated, and "And Yet Not You Alone"
appears as the final stanza of the first poem. This proof is grouped
with two others at the Library of Congress. The proofs have no editorial
corrections, but one (pictured here) is signed by Whitman and another
contains a note in another hand reading, "from the papers of Walt
Whitman given to Mosher by Traubel 1906."
Whitman Archive Title: Fancies at Navesink, the Pilot in the mist
Content:
A draft of "Pilot in the
Mist," the first in the eight-poem sequence "Fancies at Navesink,"
first published in the August 1885 issue of
Nineteenth Century.
On the verso is a letter dated October 3, 1884 to Whitman from Richard Hines requesting information about Martin Farquhar Tupper.
Content:
This manuscript appears to concern the possible arrangement of the eight-poem cycle "Fancies at Navesink," which was published in the August 1885 issue of
Nineteenth Century
. The titles of three poems not included in "Fancies at Navesink"—"After the Supper and Talk," "You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me," and "Ah, Not This Granite Dead and Cold"—are also mentioned. This manuscript is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."
Content:
This is a galley proof of four poems from "Fancies of Navesink," a group of eight poems first published in
The Nineteenth Century
in August 1885: ""The Pilot in the Mist,"" ""Had I the Choice,"" ""You Tides With Ceaseless Swell,"" and ""Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning."" Signed, dated, and heavily annotated by Whitman.
Content:
Draft for a title page, beginning "or Halycon days," with a note at the
head "for title page to supplement of L of G not Nov. Boughs." The
verso appears to have been a previous title page draft for "Fancies at Navesink."
"Halcyon Days" first
appeared in the New York
Herald
on 29 January 1888, and was reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy
Annex" to
Leaves of
Grass
(1888).
Content:
This manuscript contains titles for a contemplated cluster of poems, "Annex at 69" and "Fancies at Navesink & other
pieces 1883 to 88." The poem sequence "Fancies at Navesink" first appeared in the
August
1885 issue of
Nineteenth
Century
. The eight poems from this sequence were then reprinted
in a section of
November
Boughs
entitled "Sands at Seventy" in 1888, which then became an annex to
Leaves of Grass
that same
year. The poems reappeared under the heading "Fancies at Navesink," although still part of
"Sands at Seventy,"
in 1891. The
manuscript was matted, along with a Frederick Gutekunst
photograph of Whitman. Because of the matting, the verso of the manuscript
is not accessible.
