The Bibliography of Walt Whitman

The most obsessive book ever written about a single book. Frank Shay spent years tracing every variant, every printing, every shift in Whitman's revolutionary masterwork, tracking how Leaves of Grass transformed across nine editions during the poet's lifetime. This isn't merely a list; it's an archaeology of American literature's most radical act of self-publishing. Shay documents the paper, the bindings, the corrections, the publisher politics, and the quiet explosions each new edition caused. He reveals how Whitman treated his own book as a living organism, constantly revising, expanding, reconceiving. For anyone who has held a first-issue point state and wondered "is this real?", this is the answer. For scholars, it's indispensable. For collectors, it's essential. For anyone who cares about how great books come into the world, it's revelatory.