Poetry Whitman, Walt: Leaves of Grass [Variorum Edition] | v.1.0 | 6 Jul 2014

[pynch]

This edition collects the six U.S. editions of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass that he published in his lifetime, plus the annexes of the so-called “Deathbed Edition” from 1891 (the Leaves of Grass portion of which is a reprint of the ’81 release).

LEAVES OF GRASS
Brooklyn, New York:
1855.

LEAVES OF GRASS
Brooklyn, New York:
1856.

LEAVES OF GRASS
Boston,
Thayer and Eldridge,
Year 85 of the States, (1860-61)

LEAVES OF GRASS
New-York.
1867.

LEAVES OF GRASS
Washington D. C.
1872.

LEAVES OF GRASS
Boston
James R. Osgood and Company
1881-82

LEAVES OF GRASS
[ANNEXES]
Philadelphia:
David McKay, Publisher
23 South Ninth Street
1891-’2

The texts are sourced from www.whitmanarchive.org which reproduces the books with all the line and page breaks of the original editions. I have checked and corrected the formatting, carefully (enough, I hope) deleted the hyphenation and checked if the page breaks also indicate stanza breaks. Fonts are embedded.

Over the course of 25 years, Whitman continually added poems, omitted others, revised existing poems, split and merged them, assigned and changed titles, and resorted and regrouped poems in what he called “clusters.” All this makes it quite difficult to follow the changes of the text, so I have tried (with my most complex link system to date) to offer several ways to enter the texts. You get the six editions, each with their own table of contents, with the poems in their original sequences. At the end of each poem you’ll find, next to links taking you back to the table of contents, links to all the versions of that poem in the other editions.

Perhaps most difficult to get an idea of is how the sequencing of poems evolved over time. To make this re-sequencing clearer I have numbered the poems and added, in each table of contents, links to all the other versions of each poem, named by release year and poem number.

Additionally, there are two alphabetical indexes for poem titles and first lines (In the title index, untitled poems are also listed by their first lines). Versions of poems from different editions are combined here (with links to each of them, of course) only if they have identical (or at least very similar) titles or first lines, or if the first line of an untitled poem is identical/similar to the name of another poem. I had to make some judgment calls whether to combine entries or not, but I think it should be easy enough to use like it is.

In order for you not to get lost in the collection with the constant jumping back and forth, each of the poems comes with the release year and number in the upper right corner and, if needed, the name of the cluster it is part of.

All the best,
pynch.

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.

[doubleshuffle]

ETA: Okay, I'll have to do some gushing. I've just put this on my reader, and have to say that this is totally brilliant. Reading Whitman has never been so much fun. Faultless formatting, which can't be said of other Whitman e-editions, plus the full-on variorum service - brilliant.

[anacreon]

Dear Pynch,

Many many thanks again.

I assumed it wouldn't work as a kepub (Joel Goguen's marvellous extension), but I tested it - confirmed. I tried with the extension inactivated - it was even worse. So I did it with the extension activated , but almost every case unchecked, and it is fine on my Aura HD (apart from the usual Kobo problem with long paragraphs, very noticeable in the 1855 introduction). I also activated the TOC up to level 3 which is a help in navigating.

I'm very pleased - it was on my "poetry to read/reread" short list, but I had only the Gutenberg version.

[tempura]

Thank you for everything you have done pynch. Love your work.