Leaves Of Grass And Other Writings

The text of Leaves of Grass is based on the Reader's Comprehensive Edition, edited by Sculley Bradley and Harold W. Blodgett, with revised annotations. This edition includes the full text of the 1855 first edition, excerpts from Whitman's prose works Democratic Vistas and Specimen Days, portraits of Whitman, and statements about his art. It features commentary from major poets and critics such as D. H. Lawrence, William Carlos Williams, and Randall Jarrell, as well as Whitman's contemporaries like Henry David Thoreau, Fanny Fern, Henry James, and Oscar Wilde. Recent criticism by scholars including David S. Reynolds and Betsy Erkkila is also included, along with a chronology, bibliography, and index.