- Hardcover: 108 pages
- Publisher: Wilder Publications, Limited (3 May 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 160459344X
- ISBN-13: 978-1604593440
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 16.5 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,053,245 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Leaves of Grass
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £5.55
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Leaves of Grass (1855 First Edition Text) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £5.55, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
" Whitman's best poems have that permanent quality of being freshly painted, of not being dulled by the varnish of the years."
--Malcolm Cowley
--Malcolm Cowley
"From the Trade Paperback edition." --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Product Description
From one of America's best loved and most important poets comes a masterpiece. Leaves of Grass is considered by many to be the greatest collection of poetry ever produced by an American. And this, the 1855 First Edition Text, is considered the strongest and most important of the many editions produced throughout Whitman's life. Here Whitman is at the height of his writing prowess, and no other edition would match it for strength and impact. "The most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
55 of 58 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This edition is very different to the later _Leaves of Grass_. Whitman was one of those poets who go on expanding their book of poems throughout their life. (Rather like Baudelaire with his _Flowers of Evil_.) Some people consider the earlier edition superior to the later: certainly it seems more radical, with unhierarchical punctuation (frequent use of . . . .), no titles for the poems, no numbering of sections (Cowley inserts titles and numbering in brackers for ease of reference), and, as the book came to its first readers, no author's name, only an engraving (reproduced in this book) of Whitman in an open shirt and jaunitly cocked hat!
What can anyone have thought opening this unattributed book and turning to the first poem, the 60 pages of what later was called 'Song of Myself''? This immense, fantastic, multi-facated, boastful, ambitious, tender work seems to me a work of art that really justifies the often misused work "original". It's amazing to think that while England had Tennyson, America had
Walt Whitman, an America, one of the roughs, a kosmos,
Disorderly fleshy and sensual . . . . eating drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist . . . . no stander above men and women or apart from them . . . . no more modest than immodest.
Whitman then shouts:
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
Whitman represents America at what seems to me its best -- bold, immense, pioneering, multiracial, unsnobbish and unashamed to feel. The first edition is perhaps the best place to meet his poetry, as it isn't diluted by many of the later poems, some of which are very short -- more like epigrams (one-sided) than the many-sided long poems here. Whitman also revised his poems later on, adding "poetic" reversals of word-order and using a more "elevated" diction; whereas here the poems are vigorously colloquial ("I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world" he declares at one point).
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is poetry at it's very best, it is truly a life-changing experience. Leaves of grass is a book to treasure for a lifetime, a feast for the heart and mind every time you open it. Whitman's soul is in direct communion with yours as he weaves a tapestry of wonder and joy on every page. His words burn deep and enter into the very fibre of your being and I guarantee that once you are touched by walt's magic you will never be the same...
23 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I feel this book has the passion of life exploding in every word uttered by the poet. His unique style of transcending his thoughts to the readers liturally over powers my soul with sheer joy and love.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
The Return of Homer
Written in the epic style reminiscent of Homer and Vergil, these modern (19th Century) poems hark back to the traditional Classical world but choosing subjects appropriate to their... Read more
Published 1 month ago by ThomasFarquhar
Good price for Books
Thanks for this edition of leaves of grass it's a good way of bought books and to introduce and know a new culture. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Juan Carlos Martín Sánchez
Celebrating the passion of life!!
In the three days I have had The Modern Library's edition of Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass', it has become my favorite book. Read more
Published on 2 May 1998
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
