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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.3
EAN num: 9780195183429
ISBN number: 0195183428
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 184
Printing Date: April 15, 2005
Publishing house: Oxford University Press, USA
Sale Popularity Level: 40887
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
'I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease....observing a spear of summer grass.'
So begins Leaves of Grass, the very first great American poem and indeed, to this day, the greatest and most essentially American poem in all our national literature.
The publication of Leaves of Grass in July 1855 was a landmark event in literary history. Ralph Waldo Emerson judged the book 'the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed.' Nothing like the volume had ever appeared before. Everything about it--the unusual jacket and title page, the exuberant preface, the twelve free-flowing, untitled poems embracing every realm of experience--was new. The 1855 edition broke new ground in its relaxed style, which prefigured free verse; in its sexual candor; in its images of racial bonding and democratic togetherness; and in the intensity of its affirmation of the sanctity of the physical world.
This Anniversary Edition captures the typeface, design and layout of the original edition supervised by Whitman himself. Today's readers get a sense of the 'ur-text' of Leaves of Grass, the very first version of this historic volume, before Whitman made many revisions of both format and style. The volume also boasts an afterword by Whitman authority David Reynolds, in which he discusses the 1855 edition in its social and cultural contexts: its background, its reception, and its contributions to literary history. There is also an appendix containing the early responses to the volume, including Emerson's letter, Whitman's three self-reviews, and the twenty other known reviews published in various newspapers and magazines.
This special volume will be a must-have keepsake for fans of Whitman and lovers of American poetry.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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4 1/2 stars, really, but we can't do that. This is the original 1855 version. Whitman added to the collection throughout his life, ending up with an overstuffed and very uneven "deathbed" version, which is better known. There are some good poems in it which aren't in the original, such as When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd, but there's a lot of pretty weak stuff, too. The 1855 has a small number of pretty consistently excellent poems which are highly original and loosely but definitely connected. Reading it is a very different experience from wading through the bloated, inconsistent final version - there's something Whitmanesque (i.e., at it's best) about the original collection as a unit. Malcolm Cowley's introduction is also a bit wild and wooly (written in the late 60s or early 70s), but interesting and enlightening.
Rated by buyers 
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At least as available for the Kindle, this is not the 1855 edition. It seems to be the final edition, which is of course great, but not what I intended to get based on the product description posted. Also, the foreward and afterward mentioned in the description are missing. I don't expect the moon for a low price, but I do expect to get what I pay for.
Rated by buyers -
Choosing the fullest, most complete version of Whitman's text, before the final editing of the deathbed edition, but following the additions made after the Civil War, the Norton Critical is a must have for students of poetry, or literature, and of nature. The wild, ecstatic hunger for the world, the ravishment of the senses, as Norman Mailer put it (though not about Whitman), the mysticism of the flesh, Whitman is, arguably, the most accomplished poet of American letters.
A must read for poets, students, and pagans (Whitman as spirit of the Green Man himself!).
Rated by buyers 
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I bought this and returned it. There must be someone out there with the right voice and reading skills to bring us Whitman's words and rhythms. Ms. Gibson's soprano sing-song doesn't make it.
Rated by buyers -
There seems to be some confusion, both in the editorial reviews and the customer reviews, about what edition is being referred to in this listing. the very first editorial review correctly discusses the very first edition as shorter and "less bloated" than the deathbed edition. however, the rest of the reviews seem to discuss either edition indiscriminately.
the two are effectively different books. the cover shown is of the very first edition including an illuminating essay by malcolm cowley--that's certainly the edition I prefer, and I hope thats what you would get if you ordered this.
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