Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Whitman Archive Title: names
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00015
Box: 3
Folder: 140
Date: Between 1850 and 1881
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a note in Whitman's handwriting which names various tribes of people, including "the Niam-Niams," "the Battas," "the Tonga-Taboos," and "the Aleuts"; also included in this note is the address of John P. Soule, a Boston "photographer and publisher." The relationship of this note to Whitman's published work is unknown. Based on the handwriting, Edward Grier dates the note to the 1850s ( Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 5:1663). The name and address, however, were added later, likely in 1881, when Whitman visited Boston several times, first to deliver a lecture and then to oversee the production of the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass . Although Whitman also visited Boston in 1860, John Soule's photography studio did not move to 338 Washington Street, the address that Whitman lists, until the 1870s.

Whitman Archive Title: Pictures
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00081
Box: 3
Folder: 137
Date: about 1855
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 27 leaves, handwritten
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Content: Bound draft of a poem unpublished in Whitman's lifetime, titled "Pictures." The first several lines of draft were revised and published as "My Picture-Gallery" in The American in October 1880.

Whitman Archive Title: O blare! blare!
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00451
Box: 3
Folder: 140
Date: 1850–1856
Genre: prose, poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: A scrap of paper featuring heavily revised poetic lines. The verso contains a prose fragment, the bulk of which is struck through. The connection between these fragments and Whitman's published work is unclear.

Whitman Archive Title: In the gymnasium
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00452
Box: 3
Folder: 140
Date: Between 1850 and 1860
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early to mid-1850s. Versions of these lines appeared in a long manuscript poem titled "Pictures," which probably dates to the mid- to late 1850s. The first several lines of "Pictures" (not including these lines) were eventually revised and published as "My Picture-Gallery" in The American in October 1880. The poem was later published in Leaves of Grass as part of the "Autumn Rivulets" cluster. Poetic lines drafted on the back of this manuscript leaf (yal.00483) likely contributed to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself."

Whitman Archive Title: were paid for with steamships
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00483
Box: 3
Folder: 140
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 . Lines from the manuscript appear in the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." Additional poetic lines are drafted on the back of this manuscript leaf (yal.00452).

Whitman Archive Title: Silence
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00441
Box: 3
Folder: 140
Date: Between 1850 and 1865
Genre: prose, poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This document consists of two manuscript scraps pasted together to make one leaf. Based on the handwriting, Edward Grier dates the top scrap to the 1860s and the bottom scrap to the 1850s ( Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:474). The relationship of the first scrap to Whitman's published work is unclear, although Grier notes that "Parsons was a [New York] street preacher who was arrested December 11, 1853 by order of Mayor Jacob Aaron Westervelt (1800–1879) for his incendiary anti-Catholic, anti-foreign speeches. [Whitman], as political journalist, was interested in the resulting 'freedom of speech' controversies. The march referred to took place on December 18" (1:474). Portions of the second scrap are related to "Great Are the Myths," first published, untitled, in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass as the concluding poem, and again in the 1856 edition as "Poem of a Few Greatnesses." These two scraps are largely unrelated: perhaps the only connection between the two is the theme of silence.

Whitman Archive Title: do nothing but lose from
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00457
Date: Between 1850 and 1860
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
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Content: A brief cancelled prose note about the spread of slavery. It most likely dates from the 1850s. The piece of paper on which the note was written has been pasted to another leaf, and some of the writing on the verso (yal.00441) is related to the poem eventually titled "Great Are the Myths."

Whitman Archive Title: Understand that you can have
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00138
Repository Title: ["Understand that you can have in your writing..."]
Date: 1855 or 1856
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
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Content: Although no specific lines from this manuscript can be directly tied to any of Whitman's published work, the language and ideas are similar to certain sections of the prose preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , as well as to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself," suggesting that this manuscript may have been written around that time. Wording in this manuscript is also similar to a line in the 1855 poem eventually titled "To Think of Time." A note written by Richard Maurice Bucke, one of Whitman's literary executors, dates the manuscript to 1855 or 1856 ( Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts , ed. Edward F. Grier [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:222).

Whitman Archive Title: Others may praise what they like
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00079
Box: 3
Date: about 1865
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript, a draft of "Others May Praise What They Like," was likely written shortly before the poem's publication in Drum Taps (1865). Perhaps because this poem did not treat the war, Whitman moved it from Drum-Taps into Passage to India , and ultimately into the "Autumn Rivulets" cluster of Leaves of Grass . On the back of the leaf is a fragment of an undated draft letter to an unspecified correspondent.

Whitman Archive Title: [the Idea of All]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00021
Box: 3
Folder: 142
Date: about 1872
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: 16 leaves, 6.25 x 3.5 in., handwritten
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Content: These leaves are pages from a top-bound notebook containing draft lines of poetry, apparently for a poem delivered at the Dartmouth College commencement in June 1872 and first published under the title, "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free," later revised and published as "Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood." Many of the pages have been cut out or trimmed, and seven envelope faces have been attached at the back of the notebook.

Whitman Archive Title: Rise, Lurid Stars
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00011
Box: 3
Date: about 1865
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a poem draft, the last three lines of which were later revised and published in Drum-Taps (1865) as "World Take Good Notice" and included in subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass. On the verso of this draft is a prose fragment discussing slavery and Southern aristocracy.

Whitman Archive Title: I cross'd the Nevadas
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00009
Box: 3
Date: about 1865
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: These six lines make up a draft of "Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps," which was published in Drum-Taps in 1865 and in subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass .

Whitman Archive Title: [While I so deeply loved]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00150
Box: 1
Folder: 56
Date: 1864
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a manuscript with poem notes relating to Whitman's experience as a nurse during the Civil War, some lines of which correspond to "The Wound-Dresser," first published in Leaves of Grass (1876). The verso contains notes about a call Whitman received from a mother, dated December 23, 1864, regarding her son Frank Lester, an imprisoned soldier. The relationship of these prose notes to Whitman's published work is unknown.

Whitman Archive Title: incidents, for (Soldier in the Ranks)
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00008
Box: 1
Folder: 53
Date: about 1865
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript includes both a description of the aftermath of a Civil War battle and the poem "incidents, for (Soldier in the Ranks)," which addresses "the second day of the battle" at Gettysburg.

Whitman Archive Title: A Night Battle in the late War
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00031
Box: 3
Folder: 135
Date: 1863
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: currently unavailable
Content: This is a brief note, dated May 2, 1863 and titled "A Night Battle in the late War." The night battle to which this note refers is probably the battle of Chancellorsville. Similar phraseology appeared in Memoranda During the War (1875–76), in the section headed "May 12—A Night Battle, Over a Week Since."

Whitman Archive Title: Memoranda of a Year
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00346
Box: 3
Folder: 143
Date: 1863
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 9 leaves, handwritten; printed
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Content: Draft of letter, heavily revised, to publisher James Redpath. Included with the letter, which pitches Whitman's idea for a book about his firsthand experiences among Civil War soldiers, are a title page mock-up, a draft publisher's announcement, the label that Whitman created for these items, and a blank envelope. The letter is written on the reverse of proofs of a circular for the United States Christian Commission, and the label, which dates the letter to October 21, 1863, is written on the clipped front of a United States Christian Commission envelope. Whitman was unable to get such a book published for over a decade. Memoranda During the War (1875–76) includes the short essay "A New Army Organization Fit for America Needed," which echoes specifically the ideas and language about military reform from the draft letter. This essay was later shortened to a single paragraph and republished in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83), given the slightly altered title "A New Army Organization Fit for America." The same language from the letter draft might also have contributed to a note on the topic of military reform that Whitman added to Democratic Vistas (1871) when he created that book-length essay from several earlier pieces.

Whitman Archive Title: [mention with honor Capt Daniel E Jenkins]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00169
Box: 1
Folder: 57
Date: 1864–1865
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
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Content: A short piece of Civil War memoranda that contributed to a portion of "The Fifty-first New-York Volunteers," published in the 24 January 1865 issue of the New-York Times .

Whitman Archive Title: [Martin Weaver]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00171
Box: 1
Folder: 57
Date: 1864–1865
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: A scrap of Whitman's Civil War memoranda. His notes on Robert B. Potter and Edward Ferrero were used in "The Fifty-first New-York Volunteers," which appeared in the 24 January 1865 issue of the New-York Times .

Whitman Archive Title: [deserter arrested election day]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00172
Box: 1
Folder: 57
Date: 1864–1865
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: Notes and memoranda of the Civil War, some of which contributed to "Fifty-first New-York City Veterans," published in the 29 October 1864 issue of the New-York Times .

Whitman Archive Title: [51st N Y V]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00173
Box: 1
Folder: 57
Date: 1864–1865
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: A scrap of Civil War memoranda headed "51st N Y V" in which Whitman mentions the death of Captain Daniel E. Jenkins. Whitman wrote about Jenkins in "The Fifty-first New-York Volunteers," which appeared in the 24 January 1864 issue of the New-York Times .

Whitman Archive Title: [some interesting items of 51st]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00185
Box: 1
Folder: 57
Date: 1864
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 16 leaves, handwritten
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Content: A notebook on the 51st New York Veterans in which Whitman recorded notes on George W. Whitman and other soldiers in that regiment, including their involvement in the war and snippets of biographical information. While significant passages from this notebook cannot be found verbatim in Whitman's published work, it is clear that these notes contributed to Whitman's Civil War writings, including "Fifty-first New-York City Veterans," New-York Times , 29 October 1864; "Fifty-first New-York Volunteers," New-York Times , 24 January 1865; and "Return of a Brooklyn Veteran," Brooklyn Daily Union , 16 March 1865.

Whitman Archive Title: [In acc't of 51st]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00211
Box: 1
Folder: 58
Date: 1864
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: A small scrap of paper with Whitman's notes on the 51st New-York Veterans, his account of which was published in the 29 October 1864 issue of the New-York Times as "Fifty-first New-York City Veterans."

Whitman Archive Title: [Frank Butler was from Massachusetts]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00212
Box: 1
Folder: 58
Date: 1864–1865
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: Whitman's notes on Frank Butler, an officer of the 51st New-York Veterans who died in action. Whitman wrote about Butler's death in "A Brooklyn Soldier, and a Noble One," which appeared in the 19 January 1865 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle .

Whitman Archive Title: Inscription
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00010
Box: 3
Date: about 1867
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a draft of the poem "Inscription," which was first published in the 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass . The poem was later revised and published as "One's-Self I Sing." In Leaves of Grass (1891–92), lines from this manuscript appear in both "One's-Self I Sing" and "Small the Theme of My Chant."

Whitman Archive Title: Song of the Universal
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00069
Box: 3
Date: about 1874
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 4 leaves, handwritten
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Content: These four leaves make up an early complete draft of "Song of the Universal," first published simultaneously in the New York Evening Post and the New York Daily Graphic on June 17, 1874. The four leaves are bound together with other manuscripts.

Whitman Archive Title: Sea Captains, Young or Old
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00006
Box: 3
Date: about 1873
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript is a signed draft of "Sea Captains, Young or Old," which was published first in the New York Daily Graphic on April 4, 1873. The poem was later retitled, "Song for All Seas, All Ships," and appeared in Two Rivulets , the companion volume to the 1876 Author's edition of Leaves of Grass .

Whitman Archive Title: [Immense numbers (several thousands)]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00149
Box: 1
Folder: 55
Date: 1865
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
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Content: A draft fragment of "Small Memoranda," first published in November Boughs (1888).

Whitman Archive Title: Brooklyn, Jan 19 & 20, 1865
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00152
Box: 1
Folder: 56
Date: 1865
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: Whitman's response to learning of George Whitman's imprisonment at Danville during the Civil War. This manuscript contains much of the same information about George and his status as a prisoner of war that Whitman published in "A Brooklyn Soldier, and A Noble One," which appeared in the 19 January 1865 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle . Material in this manuscript also contributed to "The Fifty-first New-York Volunteers," published in the New-York Times , 24 January 1865 as well as portions of Memoranda During the War (1875–76).

Whitman Archive Title: [Jan 21, 1865, New York]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00186
Box: 1
Folder: 57
Date: 1865
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: Notes from Whitman's interview with E. F. Shephard regarding officers of the 51st New-York Volunteers. Portions of this manuscript were used in "The Fifty-first New-York Volunteers," New-York Times , 24 January 1865.

Whitman Archive Title: [in Poetry of the Future]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00076
Box: 3
Date: 1865–1875
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: A partial draft of "Poetry of the Future," first published in North American Review 132 (February 1881), 195–210. Whitman revised this essay and reprinted it as "Poetry To-day in America—Shakespere—the Future" in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83).

Whitman Archive Title: The man-of-war.-Bird
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00005
Box: 3
Date: between 1869 and 1876
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript is a note by Whitman for the poem "To the Man-of-War Bird," which was first published in the April 1, 1876 issue of Athenaeum.

Whitman Archive Title: [Come, said the Muse]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00062
Box: 3
Date: about 1874
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
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Content: Very early draft fragment of "Song of the Universal," first published simultaneously in the New York Evening Post and the New York Daily Graphic on June 17, 1874. The manuscript bears the cancelled date "March 31, '74." The two leaves are bound together with other manuscripts.

Whitman Archive Title: Song of the Universal
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00064
Box: 3
Date: about 1874
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Content: Very early draft fragment of "Song of the Universal," first published simultaneously in the New York Evening Post and the New York Daily Graphic on June 17, 1874. The leaf is bound together with other manuscripts.

Whitman Archive Title: [all the vast mass]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00065
Box: 3
Date: about 1874
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Content: Very early draft fragment of "Song of the Universal," first published simultaneously in the New York Evening Post and the New York Daily Graphic on June 17, 1874. The leaf is bound together with other manuscripts.

Whitman Archive Title: [Christ]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00066
Box: 3
Date: about 1874
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Content: Very early draft fragment of "Song of the Universal," first published simultaneously in the New York Evening Post and the New York Daily Graphic on June 17, 1874. The leaf is bound together with other manuscripts.

Whitman Archive Title: What the word of power unbroken
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00077
Box: 3
Folder: 167
Date: about 1876
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript contains lines of an unpublished poem celebrating the Union, a theme also found in the poetry manuscripts titled "Hands Round" and "Starry Union." The lines were probably drafted for the Centennial of 1876.

Whitman Archive Title: Real American Red Men
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00324
Box: 3
Folder: 116
Date: 1870–1872
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
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Content: Draft of a prose piece which appeared in the 20 September 1872 issue of the Washington Evening Star , under the head "Washington News and Gossip." For more on this manuscript and its historical context, see Martin Murray, "The Poet-Chief Greets the Sioux," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 17 (Summer 1999), 25-37.

Whitman Archive Title: Washington as a Central Winter Residence
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00328
Folder: 119
Date: 1871–1872
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 6 leaves, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript touches on the developing "distinctive metropolitan American Character" of Washington, including the city's status as a literary center. Portions of this manuscript were used in "Washington as a Central Winter Residence" and "Authors of Washington," the latter of which was published in two installments. The first installment appeared in the 6 January 1872 issue of the Washington Evening Star , which also included "Washington as a Central Winter Residence." The second installment was published in the 9 January 1872 issue of the same. For more details regarding how this manuscript contributed to these two pieces of journalism, see Martin G. Murray, "Two Pieces of Uncollected Whitman Journalism: 'Washington as a Central Winter Residence' and 'The Authors of Washington,'" Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 20 (Winter/Spring 2003), 151-176.

Whitman Archive Title: As in a Swoon
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00004
Box: 3
Date: between 1872 and 1876
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a manuscript of the poem "As in a Swoon," first published in the 1876 printing of Leaves of Grass . Although this poem was not included in any subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass , Whitman did include it in the 1891 volume Good-Bye My Fancy , and as one of the few poems in the 1892 volume Complete Prose Works .

Whitman Archive Title: [It has been good fun]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00317
Box: 3
Folder: 110
Date: 1872
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
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Content: Draft of a prose piece which appeared in the 17 October 1872 issue of the Washington Evening Star , under the head "Washington News and Gossip." For more on this manuscript and its contribution to this published work, see Martin G. Murray, "Walt Whitman Laughs: An Uncollected Piece of Prose Journalism," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 30 (Winter 2013), 138-149.

Whitman Archive Title: Walt Whitman's poem to-day at Dartmouth College
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00327
Box: 3
Folder: 118
Date: 1872
Genre: prose, poetry
Physical Description: 7 leaves, handwritten; printed
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Content: A draft of "Walt Whitman's Poem Today at Dartmouth College," an essay announcing the commencement poem Whitman delivered at Dartmouth June 26, 1872. This piece was published in the 26 June 1872 issue of the Washington Evening Star and includes excerpts from Whitman's poem, "Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood," originally published in the New York Herald 26 June 1872 under the title "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free." This poem was later published with seven other poems in a pamphlet, As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free (1872). It was also included in a supplement bound with Two Rivulets (1876). Whitman eventually changed the title to "Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood," added a new opening stanza, made additional revisions, and incorporated the poem into Leaves of Grass (1881–82).

Whitman Archive Title: Putrid Politics
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00342
Box: 3
Folder: 138
Date: 1873–1875
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: A draft fragment composed on two scraps of paper, pasted together to form one leaf. In this manuscript, Whitman addresses the symptoms and causes of the Civil War. The ideas presented in this manuscript appeared in Memoranda During the War (1875–76) before being revised and collected in Specimen Days & Collect (1882) as "Origins of Attempted Secession: Not the whole matter, but some side facts worth conning to-day and any day." On the verso of one scrap is a draft letter, addressed to A. R. Butts, dated 29 December 1873.

Whitman Archive Title: The Van Velsors
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00334
Box: 3
Folder: 125
Date: 1873
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
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Content: Notes on the women of the Van Velsor family. Portions of this manuscript contributed to "Some Personal and Old-Age Jottings," Good-Bye My Fancy (1891).

Whitman Archive Title: Song of the Universal
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00061
Box: 3
Date: 1874
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Content: This manuscript is a note in Whitman's hand about the poem "Song of the Universal," with the date June 17, 1874. The leaf is bound together with other manuscripts.

Whitman Archive Title: with husky-haughty lips, O sea
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00002
Box: 3
Folder: 170
Date: 1884
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a draft of "With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!," first published in Harper's Monthly Magazine in March 1884, written on the verso of a discarded review of John Burrough's Notes on Walt Whitman. This poem was reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass in 1888 and after.

Whitman Archive Title: Song of the Universal
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00068
Box: 3
Date: June 1874
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 5 leaves, handwritten
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Content: These five leaves make up what is apparently a complete printer's copy of "Song of the Universal," first published simultaneously in the New York Evening Post and the New York Daily Graphic on June 17, 1874. The manuscript is dated June 1874. The leaves are bound together with other manuscripts.

Whitman Archive Title: With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00034
Box: 3
Date: 1884
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Content: This is a printed draft of the poem, "With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!," with corrections in Whitman's hand. The poem was published first in Harper's Monthly Magazine in March 1884, and was reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass in 1888 and after.

Whitman Archive Title: With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00036
Box: 3
Date: 1884
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Content: This is a printed draft of the poem, "With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!," with corrections in Whitman's hand. The poem was published first in Harper's Monthly Magazine in March 1884, and was reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass in 1888 and later.

Whitman Archive Title: [other than merely literary points]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00117
Box: 1
Folder: 8
Date: 1876
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
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Content: A heavily revised draft fragment, composed of several scraps of paper pasted together to form two leaves. The notes found on the first leaf were used in "Preface, 1876, to the two-volume Centennial Edition of L. of G. and 'Two Rivulets'" (1876). The prose fragment on the second leaf contributed to "Darwinism—(then Furthermore)," a short prose piece that orginally appeared in Two Rivulets (1876), but that was later incorporated into the "Notes Left Over" section of Collect in Specimen Days & Collect (1882–83). Both of these pieces were eventually included in Complete Prose Works (1892). Cancelled Civil War "reminiscences" on the Battle of First Fredericksburgh and the sinking of the U.S.S. Hatteras appear on the verso of the second leaf. Whitman wrote about both of these events in "'Tis But Ten Years Since (Third Paper)," New York Weekly Graphic (14 February 1874).

Whitman Archive Title: Convalescent hours
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00331
Box: 3
Folder: 122
Date: 1877
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript is a draft of the first paragraph of "A Sun-Bath—Nakedness," published in Specimen Days & Collect (1882).

Whitman Archive Title: Italian Music in Dakota
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00003
Box: 3
Date: between 1879 and 1881
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
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Content: This is a draft of "Italian Music in Dakota," first published in the 1881–82 edition of Leaves of Grass .

Whitman Archive Title: Fancies at Navesink
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00072
Box: 3
Date: about 1885
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 5 leaves, handwritten
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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: Had I the Choice
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00073
Box: 3
Date: about 1885
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript is an early draft of the poem "Had I the Choice," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the August 1885 issue of Nineteenth Century . This manuscript is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."

Whitman Archive Title: Had I the Choice
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00040
Box: 3
Date: about 1885
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a draft of the poem "Had I the Choice," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the August 1885 issue of Nineteenth Century . The leaf is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."

Whitman Archive Title: [waning day]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00042
Box: 3
Date: about 1885
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a revised draft of poetic lines that may be an early version of "Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the August 1885 issue of Nineteenth Century . On the verso is part of a cancelled letter to Whitman. The leaf is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."

Whitman Archive Title: Last of ebb, and daylight waning
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00044
Box: 3
Date: about 1885
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a draft of the poem "Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the August 1885 issue of Nineteenth Century . This manuscript is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."

Whitman Archive Title: Nor you alone
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00049
Box: 3
Date: about 1885
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a draft of the poem "And Yet Not You Alone," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the August 1885 issue of Nineteenth Century . The draft also has, in the bottom margin, the title of the poem which follows it in "Fancies at Navesink," "Proudly the Flood Comes In." This manuscript is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."

Whitman Archive Title: your needed blending discord-parts
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00050
Box: 3
Date: about 1885
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a draft of the poem "And Yet Not You Alone," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the August 1885 issue of Nineteenth Century . This manuscript is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."

Whitman Archive Title: Proudly the flood comes in
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00052
Box: 3
Date: about 1885
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a draft of "Proudly the Flood Comes In," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the August 1885 issue of Nineteenth Century . The reverse of this manuscript is an advertisement for Whitman's book, Drum-Taps . This manuscript is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."

Whitman Archive Title: [and deeper still]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00054
Box: 3
Date: about 1885
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a revised draft of the poem "Then Last of All," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the August 1885 issue of Nineteenth Century . This manuscript is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."

Whitman Archive Title: [last—Dec 11]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00055
Box: 3
Date: about 1885
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a revised draft of the poem "Then Last of All," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the August 1885 issue of Nineteenth Century . The verso of this manuscript is an advertisement for Whitman's book, Drum-Taps . This manuscript is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."

Whitman Archive Title: Leaves of Grass
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00035
Box: 3
Folder: 155
Date: about 1881
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 10 leaves, printed; handwritten
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Content: Proofs of the publisher's advertisement and the table of contents for the 1881–82 edition of Leaves of Grass , with corrections and deletions in Whitman's hand.

Whitman Archive Title: Italian Music in Dakota
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00080
Box: 3
Folder: 153
Date: about 1881
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
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Content: Corrected galley proof of the poem "Italian Music in Dakota," first published in Leaves of Grass (1881–82).

Whitman Archive Title: How often since that dark and chilly Saturday
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00339
Box: 3
Folder: 130
Date: 1880–1882
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
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Content: A late draft of "Death of Abraham Lincoln. Lecture deliver'd in New York, April 14, 1879—in Philadelphia, '80—in Boston, '81," published in Specimen Days (1882). Though Whitman delivered this lecture for the first time in April 1879, based on the letters which comprise the versos of this manuscript, this draft was not composed until some time after March 1880.

Whitman Archive Title: I think the principal obstacle
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00422
Box: 3
Folder: 140
Date: 1882
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
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Content: Whitman's notes on the "treatment of sex" as the chief obstacle to the advancement of women's rights, pasted to a backing sheet with a clipping of "What Women Can Do" from the New York Herald 17 April 1882. Portions of this manuscript were revised and used in "A Memorandum at a Venture," first published in the June 1882 issue of the North American Review . This essay was reprinted in Specimen Days (1882).

Whitman Archive Title: By thine own lips, O Sea
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00014
Box: 3
Date: 1883
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript is a draft of the poem first published as "With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!" in the March 1884 issue of Harper's Monthly Magazine . The poem was reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to the 1888 edition of Leaves of Grass . Whitman wrote this draft on the back of a sheet of stationery for the Sheldon House of Ocean Grove, New Jersey.

Whitman Archive Title: with husky-haughty lips, O Sea!
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00001
Box: 3
Date: late 1883 or early 1884
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a signed and revised draft of "With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!," which was published first in Harper's Monthly Magazine in March 1884. This poem was reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass in 1888 and after.

Whitman Archive Title: Written Impromptu in an album
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00343
Box: 3
Folder: 139
Date: 1883
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: Notes, dated 26 December 1883, which Whitman wrote to commemorate "these merry Christmas days and nights." The contents of this manuscript were used in Complete Prose (1892), under the title "Written Impromptu in an Album."

Whitman Archive Title: Fancies at Navesink
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00039
Box: 3
Date: between about 1885 and 1888
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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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."

Whitman Archive Title: Last of ebb, and daylight waning
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00046
Box: 3
Date: 1885
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 3 leaves, handwritten
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Content: This is a draft on three leaves of the poem "Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning," published as part of "Fancies at Navesink" in the August 1885 issue of Nineteenth Century . The manuscript has the cancelled title "At the Mouth of the River." On the reverse of the first leaf is a letter from J. M. Rollo, requesting an autograph, dated January 12, 1885. This manuscript is bound with others under the title "Fancies at Navesink."

Whitman Archive Title: For Queen Victoria's Birthday
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00032
Box: 3
Date: about 1890
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
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Content: This is a typed and corrected proof of "For Queen Victoria's Birthday," first published in the Philadelphia Public Ledger on May 24, 1890. Whitman later included this poem in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891).

Whitman Archive Title: Sands at Seventy
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00020
Box: 3
Date: late 1880s
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a note, written on the reverse of a postmarked envelope, that offers the title "Sands on the Shores of Seventy &c &c for Annex to the preceding," as an alternative to the title "Sands at Seventy," which was first used for a cluster of poems in November Boughs (1888).

Whitman Archive Title: To the year 1889
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00007
Box: 3
Date: late 1888 or very early in 1889
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a late draft of "To the Year 1889," published first on January 5, 1889, in the Critic . Retitled "To the Pending Year," the poem appeared in Good-Bye My Fancy in 1891.

Whitman Archive Title: Whitman, Walt, poet, was born May 31
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00382
Box: 10
Folder: 222
Date: 1888
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
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Content: Portions of this manuscript appeared in "Some Personal and Old-Age Jottings," first published in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891). Portions of this manuscript were also used in "Autobiographic Note. From an old 'remembrance copy,'" in Camden's Compliment to Walt Whitman, May 31, 1889: Notes, Addresses, Letters, Telegrams (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1889).

Whitman Archive Title: Funeral Interpolations
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00013
Box: 3
Date: August 1888
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a signed draft of "Funeral Interpolations," a poem published first as "Over and Through the Burial Chant" in the New York Herald on August 12, 1888, on the occasion of General Philip Henry Sheridan's death (on August 5), and later as "Interpolation Sounds" in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891).

Whitman Archive Title: Osceola
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00037
Box: 3
Date: 1889 or 1890
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This manuscript is apparently a printer's copy of the poem "Osceola," which was first published in Munyon's Illustrated World in April 1890. This manuscript is bound together with others.

Whitman Archive Title: The Unexpress'd
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00012
Box: 3
Date: about 1889 or 1890
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: This is a draft of "The Unexpress'd," which was published in Lippincott's Magazine in March 1891. A note on the manuscript in Whitman's hand indicates that the poem was sent for publication in 1890 to W. H. Alden, the editor of Harper's Monthly Magazine, but was rejected.

Whitman Archive Title: At the Complimentary Dinner, Camden
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00338
Box: 3
Folder: 129
Date: 1889
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
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Content: A corrected proof of "To Be Present Only," Whitman's response to an invitation to give an address at the complimentary dinner held in honor of his 70th birthday in Camden on 31 May 1889. Horace Traubel published Whitman's response as "At the Complimentary Dinner, Camden, New Jersey, May 31, 1889" in Camden's Compliment to Walt Whitman, May 31, 1889: Notes, Addresses, Letters, Telegrams (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1889). Whitman later collected this response in Complete Prose (1892), under the title "To Be Present Only."

Whitman Archive Title: At the Complimentary Dinner, Camden
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00454
Box: 3
Folder: 129
Date: 1889
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
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Content: A corrected proof of "To Be Present Only," Whitman's response to an invitation to give an address at the complimentary dinner held in honor of his 70th birthday in Camden on 31 May 1889. Horace Traubel published Whitman's response as "At the Complimentary Dinner, Camden, New Jersey, May 31, 1889" in Camden's Compliment to Walt Whitman, May 31, 1889: Notes, Addresses, Letters, Telegrams (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1889). Whitman later collected this response in Complete Prose (1892), under the title "To Be Present Only."

Whitman Archive Title: At the Complimentary Dinner, Camden
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00455
Box: 3
Folder: 129
Date: 1889
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
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Content: A corrected proof of "To Be Present Only," Whitman's response to an invitation to give an address at the complimentary dinner held in honor of his 70th birthday in Camden on 31 May 1889. Horace Traubel published Whitman's response as "At the Complimentary Dinner, Camden, New Jersey, May 31, 1889" in Camden's Compliment to Walt Whitman, May 31, 1889: Notes, Addresses, Letters, Telegrams (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1889). Whitman later collected this response in Complete Prose (1892), under the title "To Be Present Only."

Whitman Archive Title: A Voice from Death
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00060
Box: 3
Date: June 1889
Genre: poetry
Physical Description: 5 leaves, handwritten
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Content: This is a signed manuscript of "A Voice from Death," a poem written in response to the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, flood in the spring of 1889 in which 2,000 people died after a dam collapsed following torrential rains. This poem was published on June 7, 1889, in the New York World. The manuscript is the printer's copy and each page is mounted separately and bound in a volume with a lettered title page and a portrait frontispiece by E. Whittlesey Kotz.

Whitman Archive Title: [Walt Whitman (from Holland and English]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00335
Box: 3
Folder: 126
Date: 1890–1891
Genre: prose
Physical Description: , handwritten
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Content: Draft of a biographical entry on Whitman that appeared nearly verbatim in G. Washington Moon's Men and Women of the Time: A Dictionary of Contemporaries (Routledge 1891).

Whitman Archive Title: An old man's rejoinder
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00318
Box: 3
Folder: 112
Date: 1890
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 9 leaves, handwritten; printed
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Content: This manuscript is a draft of "An Old Man's Rejoinder," first published in the Critic 17 (16 August 1890) before being reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891). Some of the versos include envelopes and letters to Whitman from A. Edward Newton, Charles A. Burkhardt, Charles B. Campbell.

Whitman Archive Title: Copy of the OConnor preface
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00322
Box: 3
Folder: 115
Date: 1890
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 16 leaves, handwritten
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Content: A copy of Whitman's "Preface to a volume of essays and tales by Wm. JD. O'Connor, pub'd posthumously in 1891," which appeared in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891), and in William Douglas O'Connor's Three Tales (1892).

Whitman Archive Title: Preface
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00323
Box: 3
Folder: 115
Date: 1890
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
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Content: A corrected galley proof of Whitman's Preface to William Douglas O'Connor's Three Tales (1892). Whitman included this preface in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) as "Preface to a volume of essays and tales by Wm. JD. O'Connor, pub'd posthumously in 1891."

Whitman Archive Title: Walt Whitman's Last—Good-Bye My Fancy
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00146
Box: 1
Folder: 52
Date: 1891
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content: A draft of "Walt Whitman's Last," which appeared in Lippincott's Magazine (August 1891). On the verso of this manuscript is an incoming letter from F. A. Hilliard, dated 25 May 1891.

Whitman Archive Title: Walt Whitman's Last
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00353
Box: 3
Folder: 167
Date: 1891
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten; printed
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Content: A corrected proof of "Walt Whitman's Last," a short treatise on the theory behind Leaves of Grass , which includes a plug for Whitman's latest work, Good-Bye My Fancy . This piece of prose appeared in the August 1891 issue of Lippincott's Magazine .

Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Individual items at this repository