Notebooks And Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, Volume 1: Family Notes And Autobiography, Brooklyn And New York

Originally published between 1961 and 1984, and now available in paperback for the first time, the critically acclaimed Collected Writings of Walt Whitman captures every facet of one of America's most important poets.

Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts gathers Whitman's autobiographical notes, his views on contemporary politics, and the writings he made as he educated himself in ancient history, religion and mythology, health (including phrenology), and word-study. Included is material on his Civil War experiences, his love of Abraham Lincoln, his descriptions of various trips to the West and South and of the cities in which he resided, his generally pessimistic view of America's prospects in the Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, and his reminiscences during his final years and his preoccupation with the increasing ailments that came with old age. Many of these notes served as sources for his poetry--first drafts of some of the poems are included as they appear in the notes--and as the basis for his lectures.

Praise for the original edition:

"Every teacher of graduate students in Whitman and American literature in general will wish to have this edition in his university and perhaps home library."
--"American Literature"