$5,985
Estimate: $6,000 - $9,000
A Fine Collection of American Literature and History
Auction: June 8, 2023 12:00 PM EDT
Rare Signed Author's Edition of Leaves of Grass
Camden, New Jersey, 1882. Author's Edition. 8vo. 382 pp. Boldy signed by Whitman on title-page. Illustrated with two engraved portraits of Whitman (facing p. 29 and p. 296), each with original tissue guard. Publisher's dark green cloth-covered beveled boards, spine lettered in gilt, boards and spine ends slightly rubbed, top corners bumped, front joint lightly worn; top edge gilt, other edges trimmed; yellow endpapers; front and rear hinges split but sound; contemporary ownership inscription on front paste-down, partially erased, dated 1884; in full green morocco lift-off slip case. Myerson A2.7c3; BAL 21418, p. 43; Wells and Goldsmith, pp. 25-26
Following the publication of the 1882 Boston edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Massachusetts District Attorney Oliver Stevens declared the work obscene. Offered the choice of removing the controversial passages, Whitman decided against making any alterations, and his contract with the Boston publisher James R. Osgood was cancelled. As part of the resulting agreement, Whitman received the remaining 225 sets of sheets, as well as the plates and dies, and they were sent to him in Camden. He promptly published this Author's Edition from those remaining sheets, for his personal use. "A scarce and almost unknown issue; it is doubtful if more than one hundred copies were printed. It appeared after the suppression of the Boston edition and before the first Philadelphia edition was issued by Rees, Welsh and Company. The text and type is the same as that used in the Boston edition, the title-page only being different. All copies were autographed, and it is probable that Whitman had these made for a few friends while waiting for the Philadelphia edition." (Wells and Goldsmith).
A handsome and unsophisticated copy of this rare signed edition.