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Editorial note: Based on the handwriting, Edward Grier dates this manuscript to the 1850s (Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 4:1594).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
Books, as now produced, have reached their twentieth remove from verities.
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
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