In Whitman's Hand

Manuscripts

About this Item

Title: and nobody else am the

Creator: Walt Whitman

Date: Between 1850 and 1855

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00280

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: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. The lines were used in the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself."

Related item: More draft lines of poetry are written on the back of this leaf. See uva.00560.

Contributors to digital file: Nicole Gray, Liz Lorang, and Robert LaCosse



[begin leaf 1 recto] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Page image: https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/uva.00280.001.jpg]

[cut away] am myself ^and nobody else, am the greatest traitor,

I went myself myself first to the headland,[my?]
own hands carried me there.

The headland itself seems to [illegible]


[begin leaf 1 verso] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Page image: https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/uva.00280.002.jpg]




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