Leaves of Grass is a timeless collection of poems and essays penned by influential nineteenth-century writer Walt Whitman. This profound compilation explores topics such as nature, mysticism, mortality, transcendentalism, and democracy. Inspired by personal experiences and observations, Whitman spent almost four decades piecing together the complete work, sharing societal ideals and epiphanies about life that still resonate with readers today. This sturdy leather-bound edition of the complete Leaves of Grass also includes Whitman's preface to the original 1855 edition, in which he expounds on his personal philosophy of writing poetry.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, it redefined the rules of poetry while describing the soul of the American character. Throughout his great career, Whitman continuously revised, expanded, and republished Leaves of Grass, but as Harold Bloom reminds us, the book that matters most is the 1855 original. In celebration of the poem's 150th anniversary, Penguin Classics proudly presents the 1855 text in its original and complete form, with a specially commissioned introductory essay by Harold Bloom.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

A Penguin Classic

When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, it redefined the rules of poetry while describing the soul of the American character. Throughout his great career, Whitman continuously revised, expanded, and republished Leaves of Grass, but many critics believe that the book that matters most is the 1855 original. Penguin Classics proudly presents that text in its original and complete form, with an introductory essay by the writer and poet Malcolm Cowley.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Leaves of Grass is a timeless collection of poems and essays penned by influential nineteenth-century writer Walt Whitman. This profound compilation explores topics such as nature, mysticism, mortality, transcendentalism, and democracy. Inspired by personal experiences and observations, Whitman spent almost four decades piecing together the complete work, sharing societal ideals and epiphanies about life that still resonate with readers today.

A 2018 Notable Poetry Book for Children (National Council of Teachers of English)

Introduce your children to the beautiful words of classic American poet, Walt Whitman. Poetry for Kids: Walt Whitman makes the work engaging and easy to understand.

Walt Whitman is considered by many to be one of the most prolific poets in American history. What better time to introduce your children to the written word than now?

This collection of thirty-five of Walt's best works has been carefully curated for kids. Each piece of work is lovingly illustrated, and are both presented and explained by New York University professor Karen Karbenier, PhD, a primary authority Whitman's poetry.

Walt Whitman includes enlightening commentary for each poem, definitions of key words, and a foreword by the expert so that kids, or even parents new to poems, will understand.

Starting off with I Hear America Singing, the collection includes excerpts from Song of Myself, O Captain My Captain , poems from Leaves of Grass, and many more thought-provoking, descriptive, and kid-friendly selections.

Today, this masterful collection remains not only a seminal event in American literature but also the incomparable achievement of one of America's greatest poets--an exuberant, passionate man who loved his country and wrote of it as no other has ever done. Walt Whitman was a singer, thinker, visionary, and citizen extraordinaire. Thoreau called Whitman probably the greatest democrat that ever lived, and Emerson judged Leaves of Grass as the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed.

The text presented here is that of the Deathbed or ninth edition of Leaves of Grass, published in 1892. The content and grouping of poems is the version authorized by Whitman himself for the final and complete edition of his masterpiece.

From Leaves of Grass to Song of Myself, all of Whitman's poetry in one volume

In 1855 Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass, the work that defined him as one of America's most influential voices and that he added to throughout his life. A collection of astonishing originality and intensity, it spoke of politics, sexual emancipation, and what it meant to be an American. From the joyful Song of Myself and I Sing the Body Electric to the elegiac When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, Whitman's art fuses oratory, journalism, and song in a vivid celebration of humanity. Containing all Whitman's known poetic work, this edition reprints the final, or deathbed, edition of Leaves of Grass (1891-92). Earlier versions of many poems are also given, including the 1855 Song of Myself.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

Leaves of Grass is Walt Whitman's glorious poetry collection, first published in 1855, which he revised and expanded throughout his lifetime. It was ground-breaking in its subject matter and in its direct, unembellished style.

Whitman wrote about the United States and its people, its revolutionary spirit and about democracy. He wrote openly about the body and about desire in a way that completely broke with convention and which paved the way for a completely new kind of poetry. This new collection is taken from the final version, the Deathbed edition, and it includes his most famous poems such as 'Song of Myself' and 'I Sing the Body Electric'.

This edition is edited and introduced by Professor Bridget Bennett.

I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease....observing a spear of summer grass.

So begins Leaves of Grass, the first great American poem and indeed, to this day, the greatest and most essentially American poem in all our national literature.

The publication of Leaves of Grass in July 1855 was a landmark event in literary history. Ralph Waldo Emerson judged the book the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed. Nothing like the volume had ever appeared before. Everything about it--the unusual jacket and title page, the exuberant preface, the twelve free-flowing, untitled poems embracing every realm of experience--was new. The 1855 edition broke new ground in its relaxed style, which prefigured free verse; in its sexual candor; in its images of racial bonding and democratic togetherness; and in the intensity of its affirmation of the sanctity of the physical world.

This Anniversary Edition captures the typeface, design and layout of the original edition supervised by Whitman himself. Today's readers get a sense of the ur-text of Leaves of Grass, the first version of this historic volume, before Whitman made many revisions of both format and style. The volume also boasts an afterword by Whitman authority David Reynolds, in which he discusses the 1855 edition in its social and cultural contexts: its background, its reception, and its contributions to literary history. There is also an appendix containing the early responses to the volume, including Emerson's letter, Whitman's three self-reviews, and the twenty other known reviews published in various newspapers and magazines.

This special volume will be a must-have keepsake for fans of Whitman and lovers of American poetry.

Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass stands as one of the most influential and innovative literary works of the last two hundred years. Widely credited as the originator of free verse in English, Whitman put forward a radical new language of the body, the nation, and same-sex love. After the book's initial publication in June 1855, Whitman revised and expanded the project a further seven times, with subsequent editions appearing at regular intervals until his death in 1892. His revisions to particular poems were often substantial, and the addition of new poems to each edition so extensive, that the bookâs dimensions altered dramatically.

This edition introduces Whitman's ongoing labour of revision and renewal his successive responses to the shattering years that encompassed the American Civil War and its aftermath. Beginning with the first edition of 1855, it moves chronologically, selecting and including the most substantial poems and clusters as Whitman first included them. In most cases, this means reprinting the often more politically and sexually daring beginning, rather than the revised end, of a particular poem's journey. The present edition thereby provides a portrait of a poet who attempted to reshape his project in tandem with some of the most tumultuous decades in American history, and who in the process altered forever the parameters and possibilities of poetry itself.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Delight in the work that forever changed the course of American poetry!

• Walt Whitman's modern and ecstatic free-verse poems shocked, enraged, and delighted critics of the time for their celebration of physical pleasures and the human body.
• Throughout his life, Whitman continuously revised and republished Leaves of Grass, but the 1855 original, reproduced in this elegant gift edition, showcases his dramatic entrance into the world of poetry.
• Hardcover gift edition with dust jacket.
• Gold-gilded page edges.
• Premium acid-free archival-quality paper.
• Compact volume is designed for both portability and longevity.
• A classic for the home or office library.
• Book measures 4-1/2'' wide x 7-1/2'' high.
• 176 pages.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was a poet, journalist, and essayist from New York. Considered by many to be the father of contemporary American poetry, he popularized the use of free verse in his seminal work, Leaves of Grass. His poetry, though controversial during his lifetime, is now revered for its explorations of freedom, the natural world, and the human body. Whitman's belief of poetry remains as true today as it was when he was alive: that ''to have great poets, there must be great audiences.''

An unabridged collection of classic verse speaking profoundly into the lives of readers today.

Leaves of Grass, featuring beloved poems such as Oh Captain! My Captain! and Song of Myself, was met with both scathing criticism and glowing praise when it was originally published in 1855. Arguably the best historical commentator of the nineteenth century, Walt Whitman continues to inspire readers today.

The most inclusive writer one might ever come across, Whitman wrote of laborers, mechanics, soldiers, mothers, carpenters, and prostitutes; this inclusivity stirred up controversy and earned bans, but also gained the attention of other literary greats like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

At a time when conversations concerning politics, race, class, and sexuality are at an all time high, Leaves of Grass which addresses the experience of multitudes, will resonate with readers today perhaps even more profoundly than in Whitman's own time.

One of the best kept secrets of modern autobiographical literature, Whitman's autobiography moves in brisk, episodic fashion to chronicle the life of one of the world's best loved and most influential poets. Experimental in form, lyrical in expression, and rich in experiential content, Specimen Days still awaits a much wider readership than it has hitherto commanded. Whitman gives us his life as lived in relation to the shifting urban and rural ecologies of a young nation -a nation that had freshly emerged from catastrophic civil war and that was assuming the vanguard of artistic, technological, economic, political, and philosophical modernity.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

For almost thirty years, The Library of America has presented America's best and most significant writing in acclaimed hardcover editions. Now, a new series, Library of America Paperback Classics, offers attractive and affordable books that bring The Library of America's authoritative texts within easy reach of every reader. Each book features an introductory essay by one of a leading writer, as well as a detailed chronology of the author's life and career, an essay on the choice and history of the text, and notes.

The contents of this Paperback Classic are drawn from Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose, edited by Justin Kaplan, volume #3 in the Library of America series.

With an Introduction and Bibliography by Stephen Matterson, Trinity College, Dublin.

Walt Whitman's verse gave the poetry of America a distinctive national voice. It reflects the unique vitality of the new nation, the vastness of the land and the emergence of a sometimes troubled consciousness, communicated in language and idiom regarded by many at the time as shocking.

Whitman's poems are organic and free flowing, fit into no previously defined genre and skilfully combine autobiographical, sociological and religious themes with lyrical sensuality. His verse is a fitting celebration of a new breed of American and includes 'Song of Myself', 'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry', the celebratory 'Passage to India', and his fine elegy for the assassinated President Lincoln, 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd'.