About this Item

Title: American air I have breathed

Creator: Walt Whitman

Date: Between 1850 and 1859

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00270

Source: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. 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: Similarities of phrasing between this and other manuscripts that either contributed to the preface of the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 or that represent Whitman's efforts to recast the preface in poetry suggest that Whitman probably created this manuscript sometime in the 1850s. See "Remembrances I plant American ground with" and "A Remembrance."