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Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Original records created by the Library of Congress; 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: [reject the claims of the genre Culturists]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.02307
  • Box: 40
  • Folder: Literary, Undated, Model American
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: One leaf with notes about how American life and character differs from the "claims of the culturists."

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Railroad poem]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00147
  • Box: 40
  • Folder: Literary, Undated, Railroad Poem
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Notes for several ideas for poems, including the railroad, mines, "corn and meat," and "the Man's hand and the Woman's hand." At the bottom is a longer prose note describing Whitman's goals for a large work about the American West.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Rel.
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00170
  • Box: 40
  • Folder: Literary, Undated, Religion
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: Two leaves of notes entitled "Rel." and discussing issues related to religion. A note in another hand in the top margin declares that the note is from before the Civil War.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [dear to me]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00171
  • Box: 40
  • Folder: Literary, Undated, The States and Their Resources
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: a draft line of poetry describing the land that is "dear" to the poet. Whitman had "Always the South" in mind as he composed the line, though this phrase was deleted.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Cluster of Sonnet Poems
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00172
  • Box: 40
  • Folder: Literary, Undated, These Days
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Notes for a "Cluster of Sonnet Poems" about the "splendor and copiousness of These Days."

  • Whitman Archive Title: [The Voice]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00173
  • Box: 40
  • Folder: Literary, Undated, The Voice
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Notes for a poem about the voices inside the heads of Socrates and Joan of Arc.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Lay on the graves of all dead soldiers]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00190
  • Box: 26
  • Folder: Decoration Day. A.MS. draft
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 21 x 21.5 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Trial lines for a poem published posthumously as "[While Not the Past Forgetting]," Notes in a hand other than Whitman's appear on the reverse.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Ebb and Flood Tides
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00195
  • Box: 26
  • Folder: Ebb and Flood Tides A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 15 x 24.25 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: An unpublished poem written in ink on a pale tan piece of paper, heavily corrected.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [The Epos of a Life]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00196
  • Box: 26
  • Folder: The Epos of a Life… A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 13.75 x 20.5 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: An unpublished poem written on a piece of lined stationery.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [As I sail'd at night alone]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00241
  • Box: 28
  • Folder: Ontario's Shores. A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 19.5 x 10 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A few lines on the verso of a cancelled letter (the correspondent and date are unknown), beginning "As I sail'd at night alone." The relationship of this draft to Whitman's published work is unknown. The title on the Library of Congress's folder comes from the final line of the draft ("As I wander Ontario's shores alone at night") and does not suggest that this draft is related to "By Blue Ontario's Shore."

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Peace no more]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00261
  • Box: 28
  • Folder: Peace No More, But Flag of War. A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: undated
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 16 x 19 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A draft beginning "Peace no more, but flag of war" written in pencil on a sheet of white paper, with a corner cut out, on which the last two lines of the poem had been written. On the verso is a list of words. The relationship of this draft to Whitman's published work is unknown.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Occasional Pieces of Poetry
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.03449
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: about 1887–1888
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: about 13, printed and handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
  • Content: Whitman's copy of John G. C. Brainard's Occasional Pieces of Poetry (1825), many pages of which bear the poet's handwriting. Whitman appears to have used the volume as a notebook of sorts, for while some of the writing seems to be related to Brainard's text most of it does not. Among the handwritten notes are several sets of ideas for poems that were never published and phrases that also appear in Whitman's personal correspondence. Some of these are phrases that Whitman inscribed in the copy of Complete Poems & Prose (1888) that he gave to Horace Traubel. On other pages are words from his letter to Anne Gilchrist of November 11, 1871. These were perhaps copied into the Brainard volume as he worked to write a poem in Gilchrist's honor, though they did not make it into "Going Somewhere," the poetic tribute that Whitman published in the November 1887 issue of Lippincott's Magazine (without individual title, but in a group of four poems collectively labelled "November Boughs"). A draft of "Going Somewhere" appears elsewhere in this volume. Also present is a draft of "The Dismantled Ship," which was first published in the New York Herald on February 23, 1888. Both poems were later included in November Boughs (1888) and in subsequent printings of Leaves of Grass. Only those pages with Whitman's handwritten notes are linked from this record. For a more complete discussion of this item, see Nicole Gray, "Walt Whitman's Marginalia as Occasional Practice," The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 107 (December 2013), 467–494.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Lofty sirs
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00387
  • Box: 31
  • Folder: before 1855, "I Am a Born Democrat," draft
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: Between 1840 and 1855
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: Edward Grier concludes that this manuscript was likely written before 1855 because of its similarity to several of the notebooks that Whitman wrote from that period ( Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 6:2110). Ideas in this manuscript are similar to ideas in the first poem in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , eventually titled "Song of Myself," and lines and phrases from the manuscript appear in another manuscript that may have contributed to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself": see "I know many beautiful things" (tex.00031.html). The tone of the statements is also consistent with Whitman's early journalistic and editorial persona. Ideas and words from this manuscript are also similar to ideas and words that appeared in the preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass . There is also a chance this manuscript relates to language in a Whitman-authored review of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , titled "Walt Whitman and His Poems," originally published in the United States Review. An image of the reverse of this manuscript is currently unavailable.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [I lately heard a lady]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.01079
  • Box: 36
  • Folder: Undated, "A Venetian Fable," draft
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: 1841–1865
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This prose manuscript comments on a "Venetian fable," which is possibly a piece of early fiction. The date and relationship of this manuscript to Whitman's published work are unknown.

  • Whitman Archive Title: What is Poetry?
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.01070
  • Box: 36
  • Folder: What is Poetry
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: 1841-1892
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: Whitman has annotated, "What is Poetry?," a holograph by George D. Prentice.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Yet Alas! while how near]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.01072
  • Box: 36
  • Folder: Whither are we Sailing?
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: 1841-1892
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: Sections of paper are pasted together in this prose reflection on "the motif of life." The relationship of these revised drafts to Whitman's published work is unknown.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [floor with his hands in his pockets]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.01066
  • Box: 36
  • Folder: Work on the Farm
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: 1841-1892
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This prose manuscript portrays a person in a farm scene. The relationship to Whitman's published work is unknown.

  • Whitman Archive Title: The Play-Ground
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00264
  • Box: 28
  • Folder: The Play-Ground (1846). A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: About 1846
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 20 x 16.5 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A draft of the early poem "The Play-Ground," nearly as it appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on June 1, 1846 (during Whitman's editorship of the paper). On the verso is a page of prose in Whitman's hand.

  • Whitman Archive Title: far. Amongst this
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.07421
  • Box: 28
  • Folder: "The Play-Ground" (1846), draft
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: Between 1844 and 1846
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript appears to be a partial draft of a piece of fiction about a character named Ganguernet. The January 1844 issue of The Knickerbocker magazine featured a story called "Ganguernet: Or, 'A Capital Joke,'" which was "Translated from the French by John Hunter." The story includes a scene with a nearly identical plot to the one described in this portion of Whitman's manuscript, although the wording is, for the most, quite different. It is unclear whether Whitman was simply paraphrasing Hunter's translation, or whether both stories were derived separately from the same source text. On the back of the leaf (loc.00264) is a draft of Whitman's early poem "The Play-Ground," which was published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on June 1, 1846. As the prose draft is crossed out and the poetry draft is not, it is likely that the poetry draft was written later. Thus, the date of composition for the prose manuscript is probably between 1844 and 1846. The title "The Play-Ground" is written vertically along the left side of this leaf, presumably labeling the material on the reverse.

  • Whitman Archive Title: No doubt the efflux of the soul
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00025
  • Box: 38
  • Folder: Undated Thoughts, Ideas, and Trial lines (3 V.)
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: Before 1855
  • Genre: prose, poetry
  • Physical Description: 14 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: This notebook consists almost entirely of prose. However, the ideas and language developed throughout the notebook can be linked to a number of poems that appeared in Leaves of Grass , including "Song of Myself," "Great are the Myths" (ultimately shortened to a few lines and titled "Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night"), "Faces," "The Sleepers," and "To Think of Time," versions of which appeared in Leaves of Grass in 1855. One manuscript passage is similar to a passage in the preface to the 1855 edition. Thus, this notebook was almost certainly written before that date. Content from the first several paragraphs of this notebook was also used slightly revised in "Song of the Open Road," first published in the 1856 edition of Leaves as "Poem of the Road."

  • Whitman Archive Title: whale—the sperm
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.07550
  • Box: 40
  • Folder: The voice of Walt Whitman
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: about 1860
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: One leaf made by pasting together two scraps of pink paper, probably wrappers from the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. This portion of the manuscript contains several fragmentary lines written in pencil and describing a whale hunt. The lines are probably related to lines on the same topic in "A Song of Joys," first published as "Poem of Joys" in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. In the 1867 edition the poem was divided into numbered sections and retitled "Poems of Joy," before resuming its original title in the Passage to India section of the 1871–72 edition. It took its final title in the 1881–82 edition. This scrap is attached to another scrap (loc.06005) that contains a title ("Poem of the Trainer") written in ink. On the reverse side of the leaf (loc.06006) are approximately four lines, written and revised in ink, that may be related to the poem "Year of Meteors. (1859–1860)."

  • Whitman Archive Title: wainscot, hut
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.07428
  • Box: 20
  • Folder: L of G (1855). Manuscript Page.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: Before or early in 1856
  • Genre: prose, poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript features a list of terms, many of which are found in "Broad-Axe Poem," first published in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass and later titled "Song of the Broad-Axe." It is likely, therefore, that the list was written before or early in 1856. The reverse side (loc.00507) contains a draft of lines related to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself."

  • Whitman Archive Title: [I was down in New Orleans]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00353
  • Box: 31
  • Folder: ca. 1848–1849. "The People and John Quincy Adams"
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: 1848–1849
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: A corrected proof of "The People and John Quincy Adams," which appeared in the New Orleans Daily Crescent while Whitman was editor of that newspaper in 1848–1849. No image of the verso is currently available.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Priests!
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00013
  • Box: 28
  • Folder: Priests! (1855). A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 10 x 20 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . The general theme of this manuscript, as well as the specific wording of one of the lines, resembles a portion of the second poem in that edition, eventually entitled "A Song for Occupations": "When the sacred vessels or the bits of the eucharist, or the lath and plast, procreate as effectually as the young silvermiths or bakers, or the masons in their overalls / ... / I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women" (1855, p. 64). Language and ideas from this manuscript appear in other manuscripts that relate to the first poem in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , ultimately titled "Song of Myself." See in particular the lines: "The supernatural of no account . . . . myself waiting my time to be one of the supremes, / The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the best, and be as prodigious, / Guessing when I am it will not tickle me much to receive puffs out of pulpit or print" (1855, p. 46). Based on its similarity to other manuscripts, this manuscript may also relate to lines 39-43 in "Debris," a cluster published in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass : "I WILL take an egg out of the robin's nest in the orchard, / I will take a branch of gooseberries from the old bush in the garden, and go and preach to the world; / You shall see I will not meet a single heretic or scorner, / You shall see how I stump clergymen, and confound them, / You shall see me showing a scarlet tomato, and a white pebble from the beach" (1860, p. 424). On the verso (loc.07512) is a proposition for a poem "embodying the sentiment of perfect happiness." Pin marks and leftover bits of glue near the bottom of the leaf suggest it was at one point attached to something else.

  • Whitman Archive Title: for droppings
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.07512
  • Box: 28
  • Folder: "Priests!" (1855), draft
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: 1850s
  • Genre: prose, poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: At the top of this manuscript, Whitman has written "for droppings." "Leaves-Droppings" was the name given to a section of correspondence and reviews that Whitman included in the back of the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass . It seems he also considered giving that title to the cluster of poems in the 1860 edition that was eventually titled "Enfans d'Adam." Given that this manuscript contains a proposal for a poem, it's possible that Whitman envisioned it being included in the "Enfans d'Adam" cluster, suggesting a composition date in the late 1850s. However, as the "Leaves-Droppings" title had been on his mind as early as 1855 or 1856, it's also possible that this scrap was written earlier. On the verso (loc.00013) are early lines that contributed to the second poem in the 1855 edition of Leaves , eventually titled "A Song for Occupations."

  • Whitman Archive Title: And I say the stars
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00042
  • Box: 29
  • Folder: Song of Myself (1855). A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . The lines are similar to lines in the first and third poems in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself" and "To Think of Time." Similar draft lines also appear in "Talbot Wilson," an early notebook (loc.00141). On the verso (loc.07869) is a draft of a piece of journalism published on October 20, 1854.

  • Whitman Archive Title: that it fibre and strengthen
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.07869
  • Box: 29
  • Folder: Song of Myself (1855). A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: About 1854
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript is a partial draft of "Memorial in Behalf of a Freer Municipal Government, and Against Sunday Restrictions," a public letter printed in the Brooklyn Star on October 20, 1854. Whitman probably drafted the manuscript shortly before the piece was published. On the verso (loc.00042) is a draft related to the poetry of the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855).

  • Whitman Archive Title: The genuine miracles of Christ
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.01019
  • Box: 36
  • Folder: Undated, "The Genuine Miracles of Christ," draft
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: prose, poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This cancelled prose manuscript was probably written between 1850 and 1855. Language in the manuscript was used in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , in the poem that was eventually titled "Song of Myself." Segments of the manuscript also resemble language that appeared in the preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass and in the 1856 "Poem of Perfect Miracles," later titled "Miracles." The wording of "the vast elemental sympathy, which, only the human soul is capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods," was used, slightly revised, in "A Song of Joys," which first appeared in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass as "Poem of Joys."

  • Whitman Archive Title: But when a voice in our hearing
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.01018
  • Box: 32
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript discusses the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and issues of state sovereignty. It was probably written not long after the law's passage, likely between 1850 and 1855.

  • Whitman Archive Title: In his presence
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00483
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: prose, poetry
  • Physical Description: 14 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: Whitman probably inscribed the material in this notebook in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . Some of Whitman's language about the poet and religion in this notebook is similar to the language and ideas used in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass . Content from leaf 10 verso (see twentieth image) was revised and used in "The Sleepers," the poem eventually titled "The Sleepers," which first appeared in Leaves of Grass (1855), including the following lines: "Now the vast dusk bulk that is the whale's bulk . . . . it seems mine, / Warily, sportsman! though I lie so sleepy and sluggish, my tap is death" (1855, p. 74). The passage likely also relates to the following lines in the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself": "How the flukes splash! / How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts of blood!" (1855, p. 48). Content from leaf 13 recto (see twenty-fifth image) may relate to other sections of the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself."

  • Whitman Archive Title: Free cider
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00156
  • Box: 38
  • Folder: Brooklyniana, Undated, Free cider and Long Island character.
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1860
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript contains prose notes about Long Island, potentially related to a piece of journalism that Whitman was considering writing, although the notes contain no known connections to any of his published work. Written at the bottom of the notes are two lines of poetry. The manuscript is written in pencil on both sides of a narrow strip of lined paper, cut from a larger sheet. This manuscript was probably written between 1850 and 1860.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Rule in all addresses
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00163
  • Box: 39
  • Folder: Literary, Rule in All Addresses.
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: Before 1856
  • Genre: prose, poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Lines and phrases on both the recto and verso of this manuscript contributed to portions of the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself," and possibly to other sections of the 1855 Leaves of Grass , suggesting a composition date before 1855. However, this manuscript also includes lines that probably contributed to "Sun-Down Poem" (later retitled "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry") in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass . It is possible that some of these poetic lines contributed to the prose preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass . A line in this manuscript is similar to the following line, in the poem later titled "Song of Myself": "I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself" (1855, p. 17). Another line is similar to the lines "And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's-self is" (1855, p. 53) and "And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man" (1855, p. 26). Another manuscript line is similar to the line "Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man" (1855, p. 23). And several manuscript lines are similar to the lines beginning "Not merely of the New World but of Africa Europe or Asia . . . . a wandering savage, / A farmer, mechanic, or artist . . . . a gentleman, sailor, lover or quaker, / A prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician or priest" (1855, p. 24). Three other lines are similar to: "Storming enjoying planning loving cautioning, / Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing, / I tread day and night such roads" (1855, p. 38). Edward Grier speculates that Whitman's note "Don't forget the bombardment" relates to the "bombardment" of the "old artillerist" in "Song of Myself": "I am an old artillerist, and tell of some fort's bombardment . . . . and am there again" (1855, p. 40). (See Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:165). Several phrases of the prose on the verso were probably later used, in somewhat revised form, in the following lines from "Sun-down Poem" in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass : "The best I had done seemed to me blank and suspicious, / My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? Would not people laugh at me?" (1856, p. 216). The poem was later titled "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." It is possible that some of the poetic lines on the verso contributed to the prose preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass . The lines "I am too great to be a mere President or Major General / I remain with my fellows—with mechanics, and farmers and common people" may relate to the sentence from the preface that reads: "Other states indicate themselves in their deputies....but the genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors...but always most in the common people" (1855, p. iii). The line "I remain with them all on equal terms" may also be related to the following line in the preface: "The messages of great poets to each man and woman are, Come to us on equal terms" (1855, p. vii). The line "In me are the old and young the fool and the wise thinker" may be related to a similar phrase in the poem eventually titled "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?": "The stupid and the wise thinker" (1855, p. 92). The phrase "mother of many children" appears in both the preface and in the poem later titled "Faces."

  • Whitman Archive Title: See'st thou
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00162
  • Box: 40
  • Folder: Literary, Undated, The Voice of Walt Whitman.
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . It probably relates to the seventh poem in that edition, originally untitled, part of which eventually became "Song of the Answerer." The manuscript is collected in a bound volume with other manuscripts.

  • Whitman Archive Title: such things
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00167
  • Box: 40
  • Folder: Model American
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1860
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This heavily revised manuscript contains prose notes describing the "mental and moral connexions" between America and other lands. While dating the manuscript is difficult, Whitman's use of the phrase "full sized men and women" suggests a composition date from the 1850s, as he used a similar phrase in the Preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , in his 1856 reply to Emerson's letter of praise for the first edition of Leaves , and in the poem "Song of the Broad-Axe" (1856). Thus, the manuscript likely dates from sometime in the 1850s. However, it does not seem that this manuscript directly contributed to any of those works.

  • Whitman Archive Title: The wild gander leads his
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00507
  • Box: 20
  • Folder: L of G (1855). Manuscript Page.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript was probably written between 1850 and 1855, while Whitman was working on the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . The lines in the manuscript appear in the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." John C. Broderick has described this manuscript as the last surviving page of "the original manuscript of the first edition of Leaves of Grass " ("The Greatest Whitman Collector and the Greatest Whitman Collection," The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress , 27.2 [April 1970], 109–128), a claim echoed by Arthur Golden in "The Ending of the 1855 Version of 'Song of Myself,'" Walt Whitman Quarterly Review , 3.4 (Spring 1986), 30n6. The page number at the top of the manuscript is not inconsistent with the possible positioning of these lines as part of a printer's copy, but lacking further evidence it would be difficult to confirm the claim. On the reverse side (loc.07428) is a long list of words, many of which are found in the poem eventually "Song of the Broad-Axe."

  • Whitman Archive Title: [I do not relegate you]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00035
  • Box: 26
  • Folder: Children of Adam. A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: between 1850-1860
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 26.5 x 15 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: These lines have an unknown relationship to Whitman's published work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Power, passions, vehement joys]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00036
  • Box: 26
  • Folder: Children of Adam. A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: between 1850-1860
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 26.5 x 15 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: These lines have an unknown relationship to Whitman's published work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Yet completion were lacking if]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00037
  • Box: 26
  • Folder: Children of Adam. A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: between 1850-1860
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 26.5 x 15 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript contains a line used in "Poem of Procreation" in 1856 (later known as "A Woman Waits for Me").

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Through you I drain the pent-up of rivers]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00038
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: between 1850 and 1860
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 26.5 x 15 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript contains lines that later appeared in "Poem of Procreation" in 1856 (later known as "A Woman Waits for Me").

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Two scenes capriciously rising out of the past]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00039
  • Box: 26
  • Folder: Children of Adam. A.MS. draft.
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: between 1850-1860
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, 26.5 x 15 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Portions appear to be trial lines for a poem entitled "Pictures" published posthumously, first in 1925. Other lines have an unknown relationship to Whitman's published work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [And here is the great Meteor]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00216
  • Box: 27
  • Folder: Meteors (1853). A. MS. draft
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: between 1850-1860
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, 25 x 18 cm, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: A draft of an unpublished poem, part of which has been connected to the unpublished poem "Pictures." The relationship to Whitman's published verse is unknown.

  • Whitman Archive Title: A Sermon Preached in the Central Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, Brooklyn, on Sabbath Morning, the 27th Day of July, 1851
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.03784
  • Box: 48
  • Folder: 13
  • Series: Miscellany
  • Date: 1851 and about 1862
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: , handwritten; printed
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
  • Content: Whitman's copy of this booklet, published in 1851, with handwritten annotations on several pages. The longest of these notes, which appears on p. 2 of the appendix, constitutes a draft of a passage that Whitman incorporated into the ninth number of his "Brooklyniana" series, which was published in the Brooklyn Standard on February 1, 1862. Only those pages bearing Whitman's annotations are currently linked from this record.


  • Whitman Archive Title: [med Cophósis]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00005
  • Box: 39
  • Folder: Literary, Before 1855, Women
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: Between 1852 and 1854
  • Genre: poetry
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: These pages were written by Whitman in the early to mid-1850s. William White described the pages as "torn from a tall notebook" ( Daybooks and Notebooks [New York: New York University Press, 1978], 773–777). White noted a relationship between these pages and the poems "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?," "By Blue Ontario's Shore," "Song of the Answerer," and "There Was a Child Went Forth." Some of the ideas and language being worked out here also appear in the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." For a discussion of the dating and importance of this notebook, see Matt Miller, Collage of Myself: Walt Whitman and the Making of Leaves of Grass (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), 11–16.

  • Whitman Archive Title: "Summer Duck"
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00158
  • Box: 39
  • Folder: Literary, Before 1855, Wood Drake
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: Between 1852 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Content: These pages were written by Whitman in the early to mid-1850s. William White described the pages as "torn from a tall notebook" ( Daybooks and Notebooks [New York: New York University Press, 1978], 770–773). White noted a possible relationship between the opening words and the first poem of the 1855 edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." The lines at the end of this manuscript were also reworked and used for a different section of the same poem. For further discussion of the dating and importance of this notebook, see Matt Miller, Collage of Myself: Walt Whitman and the Making of Leaves of Grass (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), 26–29.

  • Whitman Archive Title: From the tips of his
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.05705
  • Box: 38
  • Folder: Notes & Nbks Brooklyniana Fulton St
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: Between 1853 and 1855
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript was probably written between 1853 and 1855, while Whitman was working on the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass . Versions of these cancelled and fragmentary lines were used in the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself."

  • Whitman Archive Title: Citizens took by mutual agreement
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.05704
  • Box: 38
  • Folder: Brooklyniana, n.d.
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: Between 1853 and 1855
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A scrap of prose discussing the building of sidewalks in Brooklyn. The writing has no known connection to Whitman's published work. The leaf originally was part of a larger notebook (loc.00024) that probably dates to between 1853 and 1855. The cancelled lines on the back of this leaf (loc.05705) were revised and used in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass . Since the poetic lines have been crossed out and the prose has not, it's likely that the prose was written later, but likely not much later, based on the similarity of the handwriting. Therefore, this manuscript was likely written around 1855.

  • Whitman Archive Title: 9th av.
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00354
  • Box: 38
  • Folder: Undated Thoughts, Ideas, and Trial lines (3 V.)
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: between 1854 and 1860
  • Genre: poetry, prose
  • Physical Description: 45 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 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 | 90
  • Content: An early notebook Whitman used for various purposes. William White, in his edition of Whitman's Daybooks and Notebooks (New York: New York University Press, 1978. 3 vols.), noted a relationship between rough drafts of poems in this notebook (called "An Early Notebook" in White's edition) and the 1860 poem eventually titled "Starting from Paumanok." On surface 54 is a passage that seems to have contributed to the 1860 poem that became "Song at Sunset." On surface 85 is a passage that perhaps contributed to the 1855 poem later titled "Song of Myself," and a passage on surface 62 might have been used in the 1856 poem eventually titled "Miracles." Because Whitman wrote entries from both ends of the notebook, the writing on about half of the leaves is upside-down in relation to other leaves. Some leaves have become disbound, and their original positions are uncertain. Our ordering is based on the earliest known transcription, done by Fredson Bowers in 1955.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Here the aboriginal money circulated]
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00962
  • Box: 35
  • Folder: "Brooklyniana: History of Brooklyn and Long Island," drafts and notes
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: about 1861
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Notes on the "aboriginal money" Whitman identifies as the "Seawan, or Seawant." Whitman wrote about this currency in the fourth installment of Brooklyniana, which appeared in the 28 December 1861 issue of the Brooklyn Standard . For more on how this manuscript may have contributed to this piece of journalism, see Kimberly Winschel Banion, "'These terrible 30 or 40 hours': Washington at the Battle of Brooklyn in Whitman's 'The Sleepers' and 'Brooklyniana' Manuscripts," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 27 (Spring 2010), 193-212.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Hendrik Hudson
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.00952
  • Box: 35
  • Folder: "Brooklyniana: History of Brooklyn and Long Island," drafts and notes
  • Series: Literary File
  • Date: 1855–1861
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Notes on Hendrick Hudson that appear to have contributed to "Brooklyniana: A Series of Local Articles, on Past and Present. No. 2," Daily Standard (5 June 1861).

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