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Catalog of the Walt Whitman Poetry Manuscripts in the Manuscripts Department, Houghton Library, Harvard University

Original records created by the Manuscripts Department, Houghton Library, Harvard University; 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 Krieble Delmas Foundation, the University of Nebraska Research Council, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.




Individual items at this repository

  • Whitman Archive Title: Bardic Symbols
  • Whitman Archive ID: har.00003
  • Repository ID: Autograph File
  • Date: about 1860
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
  • Content: This is a partial, late draft, with minor revisions, of "Bardic Symbols," first published in the April 1860 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. The poem was later revised and published under the title "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life." Two of the manuscript leaves are stored with a letter to the editor, James Russell Lowell, dated October 2, 1861; the other leaf is stored separately.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Passage to India
  • Whitman Archive ID: har.00004
  • Repository ID: MS Lowell 15
  • Date: about 1870
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 21 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28
  • Content: A complete draft, with extensive revisions, of "Passage to India," a poem first published in 1871 in a small volume of the same name. "Passage to India" was later included as a supplement to the 1871 edition of Leaves of Grass . This particular draft includes passages cut from letterpress proofs and is bound with a letter to Andrew and Thomas Rome, dated 15 March 1870. Most of the verso images are unavailable.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Spain
  • Whitman Archive ID: har.00002
  • Repository ID: bMS Am 1545 (1)
  • Date: March 16, 1873
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This is an unsigned draft of the poem "Spain," which was first published in 1873. The poem was later titled "Spain, 1873-74."

  • Whitman Archive Title: Grand is the Seen
  • Whitman Archive ID: har.00001
  • Repository ID: bMS Am 1343 (546)
  • Date: about 1891
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This is an unsigned draft of "Grand Is the Seen," a poem first published in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891). Good-Bye My Fancy was then included as the second annex to the Deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass (1891-92).

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