Life and works of Walt Whitman

'Leaves of Grass'

In 1855, Whitman published the first edition of "Leaves of Grass." The book was unusual, as the 12 poems it included were untitled and were set in type (partly by Whitman himself) that looked more like prose than poetry.
Whitman had written a lengthy and remarkable preface, essentially introducing himself as an "American bard." For the frontispiece, he selected an engraving of himself dressed as a common worker. The green covers of the book were embossed with the title “Leaves of Grass.” Curiously, the title page of the book, perhaps because of an oversight, did not contain the author's name.
The poems in the original edition were inspired by the things Whitman found fascinating: the crowds of New York, the modern inventions the public marveled over, and the raucous politics of the 1850s. While Whitman apparently hoped to become the poet of the common man, his book went largely unnoticed.
However, "Leaves of Grass" did attract one major fan. Whitman admired the writer and speaker Ralph Waldo Emerson and sent him a copy of his book. Emerson read it, was greatly impressed, and wrote a letter to Whitman: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career."
Whitman produced approximately 800 copies of the first edition of "Leaves of Grass," and the following year he published a second edition, which contained 20 additional poems.

Evolution of 'Leaves of Grass'

Whitman saw "Leaves of Grass" as his life’s work. Rather than publishing new books of poems, he began a practice of revising the poems in the book and adding new ones in successive editions.
The third edition of the book was issued by a Boston publishing house, Thayer and Eldridge. Whitman traveled to Boston to spend three months in 1860 preparing the book, which contained more than 400 pages of poetry. Some of the poems in the 1860 edition referred to homosexuality, and while the poems were not explicit, they were nonetheless controversial.