The Walt Whitman Archive
In Whitman's Hand
Manuscripts
About this Item
Title: Books, as now produced
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Between 1850 and 1860
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00112
Source: Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note: Based on the handwriting, Edward Grier dates this manuscript to the 1850s (Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 4:1594). Grier speculates that Richard Maurice Bucke, one of Whitman's literary executors, may have received this manuscript pinned together with several others on the same theme (4:1603). The manuscript is pasted down, so an image of the verso is unavailable.
Contributors to digital file: Janel Cayer, Jeannette Schollaert, Kevin McMullen, Nicole Gray, Kenneth M. Price, and Brett Barney
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Books, as now produced, have reached their twentieth remove from verities.
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We have to state that the superfine an in any Literature in any its profound relations, has to do with with thoughts, th[ou?] men, things, &c. at first hand
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Most people, when they speak of or write or write of Literature, mean merely Literary Literature. Most people Our writers have apparently forgotten that there is any thing ^to be aimed at at, further except but Literary Literature. But in its profound relations, ^in its origin in great minds this great medium & institute has only to do with thoughts, men, things, & even the Soul, at first hand. Its special pro ful furnishes & the instruments & teaches them ☜ opposite page