Leaves of Grass

The first edition of Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman, was published in 1855. A slim volume of 95 pages, it contained 12 untitled poems and a 10-page preface, also untitled. The poem that came to be known as “Song of Myself” took up more than half of the book. Although Whitman designed, financed, and published Leaves of Grass himself, there is no author’s name on the title page. However, the frontispiece features a picture of Whitman: He appears as a young working man, bearded, with an open-neck shirt, a wide-brimmed hat worn at an angle, one hand in his pocket and the other on his hip. His stance and outward gaze suggest defiance; he is clearly not a gentleman poet but “one of the roughs” (Line 499) the speaker describes in “Song of Myself.” 

Whitman greatly expanded Leaves of Grass over several decades; the final 1892 edition, with its two annexes, contained nearly 400 poems. The collection has become one of the most important publications in American literature, heralding Whitman’s innovative style and visionary themes: the expansive nature of the self, the interconnectedness of the universe, the United States’ unity amidst diversity and its grand democracy of souls.

This study guide refers to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass,1855 Edition, edited by Malcolm Cowley and published by Penguin Classics in 1986.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of sexual content. 

Language Note: Whitman refers to people with intellectual disabilities in the medical idiom of his time as “idiots”—a word that has now become offensive. This guide reproduces the term in direct quotes. Whitman also uses several offensive words for Indigenous peoples of North America, some of which are reproduced in direct quotes.

Citation Note: In this guide, in-text citations that include the word line—for example, (Line 42)—refer to line numbers within Whitman’s poems. In-text citations containing only numbers—such as (12)—refer to page numbers in the collection’s Preface.

Poet Biography

Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in the village of West Hills, on Long Island, New York. He was the second of nine children born to Walter Whitman, a farmer and carpenter, and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. When Whitman was three, the family moved to Brooklyn, where Whitman attended school and then worked as an office boy in a legal firm. He read widely, attended plays and lectures, and visited museums. 

In the 1930s, Whitman began his career as a printer and newspaperman. After an apprenticeship at the Long Island Patriot, a Brooklyn newspaper where he contributed his own articles, he joined the Long Island Star and became a journeyman printer and compositor at printing shops in New York City. In 1836, he moved back to Long Island, where he taught and started his own short-lived newspaper, the Long Islander.

During the 1840s, began writing fiction. His short stories were published in newspapers and magazines. He also wrote Franklin Evans; or The Inebriate: A Tale of the Times, a temperance novel, in 1842.

Whitman’s impact on American literature began with the publication of Leaves of Grass in 1855. He financed the first edition himself and sent a copy to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who responded with enthusiasm. Whitman published a second edition in 1856, with 20 new poems, and continued to expand Leaves of Grass over decades, publishing the ninth edition in 1891.

During the US Civil War (1861-1865), Whitman worked as a government clerk in Washington, DC. A staunch supporter of the Union cause, he regularly visited hospitals, comforting wounded soldiers. In 1865, he published Drum Taps, which contained many poems about the war.

Whitman’s health declined and a stroke in 1873 left him partially paralyzed. He moved to Camden, New Jersey, for the remainder of his life. In 1882, he published Specimen Days, a collection of autobiographical prose pieces centered on the Civil War years. Whitman died on March 26, 1892.

Poem Text

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. 1855. Whitman Archive.