Lot #92 Leaves of Grass

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Estimate: $120,000 - $180,000

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Description

Title:

Leaves of Grass

Author:

Whitman, Walt

Place Published:

Brooklyn, New York

Date Published:

1855

Description:

95, [1 blank] pp. Engraved frontispiece portrait of Whitman (state A, printed on heavy paper). 28x19.3 cm (11x7½"), original green cloth with decorative title and triple-ruled border in git on both covers, spine decorated and titled in gilt, decorative blindstamping on covers, all edges gilt (binding A), expertly recased preserving original spine. First Edition, first issue. [offered with]: Walt Whitman’s own copy of the famous 1860 portrait, signed and dated by him in ink, on sheet of stiff paper measuring 22.6x15.9 cm (9x6¼").

First edition, first issue, one of only 337 copies of the first issue, distinguished by its elaborately gilt-stamped cloth binding, prepared in June/July 1855. Whitman reported that only 800 copies were printed; this copy is from the first group to be bound. The copies bound later did not have the extensive gilt stamping. Whitman paid for the book, supervised its production, and even set a number of pages in type. Provenance: a rare example with an 1855 ownership signature, this copy is signed and dated October 1855 by Edmund G. Baker on the verso of the frontispiece. Laid in is an 1877 receipt from A. Williams & Co., for purchase by Mr. B.E. Perry for "1 Leaves of Grass $5.00." In custom-made half morocco slipcase and chemise, with oval bookplate "Ex Libris W[lliam] S. R[eese]" on inside of chemise.

With: Whitman's own copy of the famous portrait of him standing wearing a coat, hat in hand, signed by him in ink and dated by him 1860, indicating when it was taken. The portrait is a photomechanical print made in 1889. Whitman’s friend, biographer, and literary executor Horace Traubel pulled this very portrait out the poet’s trash. Traubel has written “See Notes Mar 3, ’91” in the upper right corner. The March 3, 1891 entry in Traubel’s With Walt Whitman in Camden states “I rescued also from his waste papers a portrait he had marked ‘1860’—usually given about 1850 as date.” (Slight crease to upper right corner through the Traubel inscription.)

Whitman sat for the portrait in 1860. He later called it “a devilish, tantalizing mystery” that he could not date with certainty. Declaring that he would “hate to give it up!” the poet appreciated “its calm don’t-care-a-damnativeness — its go-to-hell-and-find-outativeness: it has that air strong, yet is not impertinent: defiant: yet it is genial.”

The influence of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass on American literature, culture, intellectual thought, and society cannot be overstated. As Harold Bloom, in The Western Canon, states, “If one attempts to list the artistic achievements of our nation against the background of Western tradition, our accomplishments in music, painting, sculpture, architecture tend to be somewhat dwarfed… The exception is in literature. No western poet, in the past century and a half, not even Browning or Leopardi or Baudelaire, overshadows Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson… The book that matters most is the original 1855 Leaves of Grass.” Printing and the Mind of Man, sums up the impact: “Always the champion of the common man, Whitman is both the poet and the prophet of democracy. The whole of 'Leaves of Grass' is imbued with the spirit of brotherhood and a pride in the democracy of the young American nation.”

Condition:

Very minor wear, several leaves neatly repaired at gutter; versos of marbled endleaves with slight foxing and mild stain to lower corner; a handsome, expertly restored copy, near fine condition.

Item#:

359597

Headline:

1855 Leaves of Grass with signed Whitman portrait
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Sale 796: PBA Platinum: Rare Books & Manuscripts (#796) 09/07/2023 11:00 AM PDT Closed Starts Ending 09/07/2023 11:00 AM PDT

Lot #92 Leaves of Grass

Sale 796: PBA Platinum: Rare Books & Manuscripts (#796) 09/07/2023 11:00 AM PDT Closed
Starts Ending 09/07/2023 11:00 AM PDT