Two Previously Undocumented Reviews of Leaves of Grass

1. Leaves of Grass (1856): Universally admired by men whose authority is unquestionable"Pasted within one of walt whitman's scrapbooks, now preserved in the charles E. feinberg collection at the library of congress, are two 1856 reviews of Leaves of Grass published within months of one another in the New York Daily News. One of those reviews-a short, but favorable notice of the second edition of Leaves of Grass, reprinted below and soon available on the Walt Whitman archive-has until now remained undocumented.In februar y of 1856 the Daily News dubbed the first edition of Leaves of Grass "the strangest, most extraordinary production" ever reviewed in its pages. The Daily News repeats this sentiment in the November 28, 1856, article transcribed below, characterizing whitman's work as "universally admired by men whose authority is unquestionable." This lofty appraisal of the second edition is no doubt influenced by two distinctive characteristics of the 1856 Leaves of Grass itself: whitman's controversial decision to gold stamp ralph waldo Emerson's personal praise of the poet in 1855 ("i greet you at the begin- ning of a great career") on the spine of the volume, and the lengthy appendix "leaves-droppings," which reprinted, among other items, Emerson's letter in full along with whitman's response to his "master." Though not "universally admired," the design of the 1856 Leaves of Grass suggested that at least one man of "unquestionable" authority stood behind w hitman's poetry.Many reviewers of this edition were incensed by whitman's unauthor- ized use of Emerson's endorsement on the cover, but this Daily News review is a reminder that some found the material presentation of the 1856 edition refreshing, shameless blurb and all. much like the Brooklyn Daily Times, which lauded the improved typography of whitman's second edition, the Daily News describes the compact, cramped, yet "neatly printed" pages of the 1856 Leaves of Grass as a "decided improvement" on the 1855 edition.Whitman's personal copy of the review was clipped out of the newspaper mid-quotation; the transcription below reprints, in brackets, the missing pas- sage as it appears in the 1856 Leaves of Grass.Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn, New york, 1856. for sale by fowler & wells, No. 308 Broadway.A new edition of walt whitman's wonderful poems.Leaves of Grass was first published something more than a year ago. it then appeared in a quarto form of 89 pages, and, as we understand, was set up and printed by the author himself. The present edition is a decided improvement on the first; it contains 384 pages, 18mo., and being neatly printed is much more desirable than the quarto.We have heretofore reviewed walter whitman's poems, and spoken of them at considerable length, and spoken very highly of them, too. it is, of course, un- necessary to repeat what we have previously said, or even to enter largely into a discussion of the eccentricities of the author, or the peculiarities and the beauties of his poems. it will be sufficient to say that they have been almost universally admired by men whose authority is unquestionable, and with scarcely an excep- tion, have been highly praised by the press of both this country and of England.Some of these "leaves-droppings" will be found at the end of the book, together with the correspondence between ralph waldo Emerson and the author. The beautiful testimonial from mr. Emerson has been the means of gaining for walt whitman an increased number of admirers.In walt whitman's letter to mr. Emerson, he writes in precisely the same style as he does in his poems. from that letter we take the following extract. it presents an idea of his manner of writing, and truthfully describes a class of persons who are exactly opposite to walt w hitman. Here it is, and with it we close our notice:Up to the present, as helps best, the people, like a lot of large boys, have no determined tastes, are quite unaware of the grandeur of themselves, and of their destiny, and of their immense strides-accept with vorac- ity whatever is presented them in novels, histories, newspapers, poems, schools, lectures, everything. …