Leaves of Grass

Today is not just the anniversary of the approval of the “Declaration of Independence”:http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/declaration.html by the Continental Congress. Today is also the 150th anniversary of the first version of “Walt Whitman’s _Leaves of Grass_”:http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/whitman-home.html. First published in 1855, Whitman revised _Leaves_ a number of times, publishing at least nine versions before his death in 1892. Whitman wasn’t shy about promoting his own work, either, writing several “anonymous reviews”:http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/reviews/leaves/leaves55/usreview.html praising the volume. You can read the text and see images of the original pages “here”:http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu:8080/saxon/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=whitman/xmlframes/documents/works/LeavesPoems_ppp.00271/ppp.00271.xml&style=whitman/xmlframes/shared/styles/LOG_display_full.xsl&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes. For all the utility of hypertext, there is something inspiring about the heft, texture, and beauty of the “bound volume”:http://www.whitmanarchive.org/servlets/xmlframes/documents/works/LeavesImagesppp.00271/ppp.00271.001.jpg.
[via “peacay at metafilter”:http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/43252]