Walt Whitman

Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful." Ralph Waldo Emerson found it "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet produced." Published at the author's expense on July 4, 1855, Leaves of Grass inaugurated a new voice and style into American letters and gave expression to an optimistic, bombastic vision that took the nation as its subject.

In his unconventional verse, Walt Whitman spoke in a powerful, sensual, oratorical, and inspiring voice. His most famous work, Leaves of Grass, was a long-term project that the poet compared to the building of a cathedral or the slow growth of a tree. During his lifetime, from 1819 to 1892, it went through nine editions. Today it is regarded as a landmark of American literature. This volume contains 24 poems from Leaves of Grass, offering a generous...

The Civil War, the most dramatic moment in this nation's history, also produced some of our greatest literature. From tragic charges to prison escapes to the desolation wrought on those who stayed behind, "Blood" is an extraordinary collection of reminiscences, fiction, and excerpts from diaries and letters by an array of soldiers, writers and observers that includes Abraham Lincoln, General George Pickett, Walt Whitman, Ulysses S. Grant and Stephen...