Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass

INVENTORY #149652

Leaves of Grass

WHITMAN, Walt

Regular price $2,500.00 Sale

James Osgood was successor to Ticknor and Reed, the Boston publisher that published Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow and other New England authors. This book is the "Suppressed Edition," since Oliver Stevens, DA for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, suggested to Osgood in 1882 that the edition should be withdrawn from publicaton because of its alleged obscenity. When Whitman agreed to change phrases but refused to delete two entire poems (A Woman Waits for Me and Ode to a Common Prostitute) Osgood decided to stop circulation. After the book became famous for being banned in Boston, it was quickly taken up by David McKay of the firm Rees Welsh & Co. in Philadelphia. In the coming years Whitman continued to add poems to Leaves of Grass but with the Osgood-McKay edition, it had reached essentially its final form. Myerson 2.7.a1.

Publication Info

  • Publisher: James R. Osgood and Company
  • Edition: "7th edition, first printing. Second state title page with "82" not just "2" in title page date"
  • Date Published: 1881
  • Place Published: Boston
  • ISBN: n/a

Details

  • Condition: Good
  • Signed: No
  • Dust Jacket: No
  • Jacket Condition: n/a
  • Details:
    382 p. 20 cm. Portrait of author with tissue guard opposite p. 29. Mustard cloth with gilt trim. Gilt hand holding butterfly on spine. Wrapped in mylar (removed for photos). Spine ends chipped, some soiling and wrinkling to cloth, lower corners bumped. Small tear in tissue guard.

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