Processed by: Melissa Delbridge and Daniel Breen; machine-readable finding aid created by: Michael Shumate and Elizabeth Arnold; revised and expanded by the Walt Whitman Archive and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. Encoded Archival Description completed with the assistance of the Gladys Kreible Delmas Foundation, the University of Nebraska Research Council, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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• Title: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
• Collection Number: duk.ead01
• Creator: Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892
• Repository: Duke University

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• Abstract:

  This catalog is a revised and enriched document based upon the original created by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, and obtained by the Walt Whitman Archive. The original papers and catalogue records are held at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

• Scope and Content:

  The bulk of Duke University's Walt Whitman holdings were acquired through a series of substantial donations made by Dr. and Mrs. Josiah C. Trent, from whom the Trent Collection of Whitmaniana takes its name. Much of the Trent material was originally gathered by Richard Maurice Bucke, Whitman's friend and literary executor, who sold manuscript versions of his biography of Whitman, along with his collection of unpublished letters and Whitman's personal papers and books, in London in 1935. The next year, Jacob Schwartz offered for sale in New York a large portion of the Whitman holdings that had belonged to Bucke, and many of the items listed in the catalogue of this sale were a part of the original donation made to Duke by Dr. and Mrs. Trent in 1942. The Trent family made several important additions to their initial bequest in the years following the establishment of the collection, but Duke University does not expect its Whitman manuscript holdings to expand at any time in the near future.

  The Trent Collection of Whitmaniana incorporates material spanning the dates 1841-1947, with the bulk of the material dated 1845-1849, 1854-1857, and 1864-1892. The virtual reorganization of the collection, based upon that devised by Ellen F. Frey in A Bibliography of Walt Whitman (1945; rpt. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1965), divides it into six series: Correspondence, Writings, Clippings, Material About or Relating to Whitman, Portraits, and Miscellany.

  Although the Trent Collection contains a wide variety of Whitman material, this catalog deals only with those items deemed poetry or prose manuscripts.

• Biographical Information:

  For additional biographical information, see "Walt Whitman", by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price, and the chronology of Whitman's Life.

• Subjects:
  • Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892
  • Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892—Manuscripts
  • Poets, American—19th century

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• Access Restrictions: Collection is open for research.; All or portions of this collection may be housed off-site in Duke University's Library Service Center. Consequently, there may be a 24-hour delay in obtaining these materials.; Please contact Research Services staff before visiting the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library to use this collection.
• Preferred Citation: To identify this catalog as a source, see the Archive's "Conditions of Use" page.