Walt Whitman

In 1855 a small volume appeared, self-published by a failed Brooklyn journalist and carpenter: twelve untitled poems and a preface announcing the author’s aims. A commercial failure, this book was the first stage of a massive, lifelong enterprise. Six editions and thirty-seven years later, Leaves of Grass had been recognized as one of the central masterpieces of world poetry. The Library of America Paperback Classic includes two complete texts: the 1855 first edition and the magnificent culminating edition of 1891-92, along with twenty pages of additional poems from other volumes by Whitman.

John Hollander has published 19 books of poetry, including Selected Poetry (1993), Figurehead (1999), and most recently A Draft of Light (2008), as well as five books of criticism. He received the Bollingen Prize and a MacArthur Fellowship and is Sterling Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University.