Walt Whitman : Selected Poetry and Prose

A scrupulously prepared teaching edition of Whitman’s work, featuring the 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass and the 1855 version of the poem eventually titled “Song of Myself,” along with numerous other writings from throughout Whitman’s career and a plethora of background contextual materials.

This compact edition offers a substantial selection of Whitman’s writing. Highlights include the full text of the 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass, the 1855 text of the poem later titled “Song of Myself,” the complete “Live Oak, with Moss” sequence, numerous selections from the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass, and several samples of Whitman’s early and late prose. The appendices include nineteenth-century reviews of Leaves of Grass, a selection of illustrations showing Whitman’s design choices for various editions of the book, and numerous portraits of the author.

This volume is one of a number of editions that have been drawn from the pages of the acclaimed Broadview Anthology of American Literature. The series is designed to make selections from the anthology available in a format convenient for use in a wide variety of contexts; each edition features an introduction and explanatory footnotes, and is designed to meet the needs of today’s students.

This edition departs from most other editions in the series in one important respect—its format. The large page size of the edition facilitates the reading of Whitman’s long lines of verse.