From School Library Journal
Grade 6 Up-By Walt Whitman. Narrated by Flo Gibson.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM OUR EDITORS

This handsome edition includes the 12 original poems of Whitman's groundbreaking work, including "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," and "There Was a Child Went Forth." Considered almost organic, Leaves of Grass was a continuing project which Whitman augmented and revised every few years until his death in 1892--by which time it included 383 poems. However, it was this original edition that Ralph Waldo Emerson called "The most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed." Taking its title from themes of fertility, universality, and cyclical life, with language reminiscent of Shakespeare and the Hebraic poetry in the Bible, the book was quite radical in form and content and was not well received at the time. Today it is considered one of the great classics of American literature and a towering work of poetry. This B&N edition includes an introduction by the renowned poet and critic Malcolm Cowley.

ANNOTATION

Comprises all of Whitman's poems written following the arrangement of the edition of 1891-1892.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

As Malcolm Cowley says in his Introduction, the first edition of Leaves of Grass "might be called the buried masterpiece of American writing," for it exhibits "Whitman at his best, Whitman at his freshest in vision and boldest in language, Whitman transformed by a new experience." Cowley has taken the first edition from its narrow circulation among scholars, faithfully edited it, added his own Introduction and Whitman's original Introduction (which never appeared in any other edition during Whitman's life), and returned it to the common readership for whom the great poet intended it.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booknews

A selection of the writings of Whitman from the volumes , , , , , , , , , , , , and others. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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