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The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman: Enriched edition. Leaves of Grass (1855 & 1892 Versions), Old Age Echoes, Uncollected and Rejected Poems
Musaicum Books presents to you this carefully created volume of "The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman". This ebook has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices.
Contents:
Leaves of Grass, 1855
Leaves of Grass, 1892
Old Age Echoes
Uncollected and Rejected Poems
Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.
Contents:
Leaves of Grass, 1855
Leaves of Grass, 1892
Old Age Echoes
Uncollected and Rejected Poems
Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.
1202 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 15, 2017
About the author
Walt Whitman
1,732 books5,622 followersWalter Whitman Jr. was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described by some as obscene for its overt sensuality.
Whitman was born in Huntington on Long Island, and lived in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. He worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt to reach out to the common person with an American epic. Whitman continued expanding and revising Leaves of Grass until his death in 1892.
During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C., and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman greatly admired, he authored two poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures on Lincoln. After suffering a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at the age of 72, his funeral was a public event.
Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Art historian Mary Berenson wrote, "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."
Whitman was born in Huntington on Long Island, and lived in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. He worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt to reach out to the common person with an American epic. Whitman continued expanding and revising Leaves of Grass until his death in 1892.
During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C., and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman greatly admired, he authored two poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures on Lincoln. After suffering a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at the age of 72, his funeral was a public event.
Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Art historian Mary Berenson wrote, "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 31, 2025
His Best AND Worst Works
The first 1/3 or so of this collection had me prepared to give this 3 stars with an accusation that Walt Whitman is massively overrated.
Half his early poems are just lists! Lists so long you forget the point of the list by the time you get to the end of it.
It gets better though as you progress through his career and his literary acclaim starts to feel deserved.
It really gets good when you reach the point in his career where he witnessed the horrors of the Civil War. Prior to that point, you could sum up his works by saying “I love the Earth, everything is amazing and everyone is beautiful, and boy do I enjoy copulating.”
There are many, many great works in this collection — although most of his unpublished works are among his worst works and probably should have remained unpublished.
The first 1/3 or so of this collection had me prepared to give this 3 stars with an accusation that Walt Whitman is massively overrated.
Half his early poems are just lists! Lists so long you forget the point of the list by the time you get to the end of it.
It gets better though as you progress through his career and his literary acclaim starts to feel deserved.
It really gets good when you reach the point in his career where he witnessed the horrors of the Civil War. Prior to that point, you could sum up his works by saying “I love the Earth, everything is amazing and everyone is beautiful, and boy do I enjoy copulating.”
There are many, many great works in this collection — although most of his unpublished works are among his worst works and probably should have remained unpublished.
April 15, 2018
Delightful, worth taking your time to appreciate his prose.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews