Whitman, a former pressman, composed most of the metal type on the first edition personally. It has to be one of the finest copies of the original Leaves of Grass still in existence.Ībout 800 copies of Leaves of Grass were printed in the first run, but only 200 of those copies were bound in the trademark green cloth cover. Having had only one home since 1855, the copy owned by the Library Company is in immaculate condition: vibrant marbled endpapers, intact binding, bright paper stock, and little or no foxing. The Library Company of Philadelphia was the only American library to have bought a copy of Leaves of Grass at the time of its release. I’d like to express my heartfelt thanks to Arielle Middleman for inviting me to visit the Library Company of Philadelphia yesterday to leaf through its early editions of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass–including a pristine copy of Whitman’s original 1855 edition.
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