About this Item

Title: in the West

Creator: Walt Whitman

Date: Between 1850 and 1860

Whitman Archive ID: loc.00168

Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 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: The style of title that Whitman proposes in this manuscript ("Poem of...") resembles that employed in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass, suggesting a composition date around that time. This estimate is in line with that of Edward Grier, who dates the manuscript to before 1860, based on its appearance in Richard Maurice Bucke's Notes and Fragments (1899) with transcriptions of other early manuscripts (Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 4:1323).