Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$112.00 + shipping
Condition: Fair
Description: NOTE: Volumes 3, 4, 5 and 6 ONLY (Prose Works). The Book-Lover's Camden Edition, limited to 500 signed and numbered sets, of which these are from set 148. Volume 3 (portion Collect, November Boughs, portion Good-Bye My Fancy): Moderate exterior wear, bookplate inside front cover, front hinge slightly opening. Volume 4 (portion Good-Bye My Fancy, The Wound Dresser): Top cover edge heavily bumped, bookplate inside front cover, front hinge opening. Volume 5 (Calamus, Whitman's Letters to His Mother, Walt Whitman and Oratory, Walt Whitman and Physique, Walt Whitman and his Second Boston Publishers (the latter 3 by Thomas B. Harned): Mark on spine, exterior wear, bookplate inside front cover, front hinge beginning to open. Volume 6 (Notes and Fragments left by Walt Whitman, Parts I-III): Wear at top of spine, bookplate inside front cover, stray mark on one page, front hinge opening, remnant of sticker on front free endpaper.
Seller: Alplaus Books, Alplaus, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$1125.00 + shipping
Description: The Collector's Camden Edition consisting of 9 (of 10) volumes in publisher's 3/4 dark green morocco leather with gilt-lettered and decorated spines, top edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Copy #216 of 300 "Signed" sets with the printed signature of the publisher on each colophon page. Issued under the editorial supervision of his Literary Executors: Richard Maurice Bucke, Thomas B. Harned, and Horace L. Traubel with additional bibliographical and critical material prepared by Oscar Lovell Triggs. Each volume contains 4 full-page illustrations, many of Whitman at various stages of life, and also including Lincoln, Emerson, Darwin, Poe, Carlyle, Longfellow and others. The first 3 volumes contain LEAVES OF GRASS and the remaining 7 contain THE COMPLETE PROSE WORKS. This set lacks Volume 1. Despite the missing first volume, this is an attractive set, the spines evenly sunned to a pleasant brown with only mild wear and rubbing. Very Good to Near Fine
Seller: Charles Agvent, est. 1987, ABAA, ILAB, Fleetwood, PA, U.S.A.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Vellum. 8vo. Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons by The Knickerbocker Press, New York & London, UK. 1902. 10 volumes. Each volume contains 4 full-page illustrations, many of Whitman at various stages of life, and also including Lincoln, Emerson, Darwin, Poe, Carlyle, Longfellow and others. #344 of 500 copies with the facsimile signature of G P Putnam on the limitation page. The Book-Lover's Camden Edition. Bound in in 1/2 vellum-backed gray boards with gilt-lettered and decorated spines, top edges gilt. Boards have wear present to the extremities (spines are faded and worn with some of the gilt rubbed off, one volume has a nasty bump present to the rear board; see photo). No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. In 1855, a small volume appeared, self-published by a failed Brooklyn journalist and carpenter: twelve untitled poems and a preface announcing the author's aims. A commercial failure, this book was the first stage of a massive, lifelong enterprise. Six editions and thirty-seven years later, Leaves of Grass had been recognized as one of the central masterworks of world poetry. This edition, long considered one of the best and most authortative, have the first 3 volumes encompass Leaves of Grass and the remaining 7 contain the Whitman's complete prose works. EB
Seller: Last Exit Books, Charlottesville, VA, U.S.A.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Very good set in vellum-backed hardcover with lovely gilt decorations on spines and linen dustwrappers. Numbered 283/500 copies. Top edge gilt, fore-edges deckled. Bookplate on first pastedown of all volumes. All volumes have a very faint blue stain on fore-edges and bottom edges where they were once stamped by a library. No other library markings present. Light fading to jacket spines. Please see our photos for details. Please feel free to write for additional photos.
Seller: Jackson Street Booksellers, Omaha, NE, U.S.A.
Price: US$1875.00 + shipping
Description: The Book-Lover's Camden Edition consisting of 10 volumes in vellum-backed gray boards with gilt-lettered and decorated spines, top edges gilt. Copy #388 of 500 "Signed" sets with the printed signature of the publisher on each colophon page and the printed signature of Whitman. Issued under the editorial supervision of his Literary Executors: Richard Maurice Bucke, Thomas B. Harned, and Horace L. Traubel with additional bibliographical and critical material prepared by Oscar Lovell Triggs. Each volume contains 4 full-page illustrations, many of Whitman at various stages of life, and also including Lincoln, Emerson, Darwin, Poe, Carlyle, Longfellow and others. The first 3 volumes contain LEAVES OF GRASS and the remaining 7 contain THE COMPLETE PROSE WORKS. Mild soiling and darkening to the spines. Very light water stain to the very top gutter of most pages in Volume 5; short tear to paper on rear cover and small nick to edge of rear board on other volumes. A Near Fine set, lacking the scarce dustwrappers
Seller: Charles Agvent, est. 1987, ABAA, ILAB, Fleetwood, PA, U.S.A.
Price: US$3120.00 + shipping
Description: 232 x 152 mm. (9 1/8 x 6 1/8"). Nine volumes (of 10). Lacking the third volume of "Leaves of Grass." Issued under the editorial supervision of his Literary Executors, Richard Maurice Bucke, Thomas B. Harned, and Horace L. Traubel, with additional bibliographical and critical material prepared by Oscar Lovell Triggs, Ph.D. ELEGANT VIOLET CRUSHED MOROCCO, GILT AND INLAID, BY H. JACKEL & CO. N.Y. (stamp-signed on front turn-in), covers framed with multiple gilt fillets, central panel with gilt and inlaid rose bush bearing 42 inlaid green morocco leaves and eight white morocco roses, raised bands, spines with one elongated compartment containing a rose branch with seven inlaid green morocco leaves and topped with a white morocco rose, gilt lettering in two smaller compartments, IVORY CRUSHED MOROCCO DOUBLURES framed in gilt-tooled mauve morocco, ivory watered silk endleaves, top edges gilt, other edges untrimmed. Each volume with hand-colored frontispiece and three hand-colored plates (as called for), all with captioned tissue guards, plus 10 additional hand-colored extra illustrations with tissue guards, and three facsimiles of handwritten notes/letters, two of which fold-out, printed on tissue. Myerson B4 (6). âProse volume VII with a couple small wormholes on fore edge, a few trivial scuffs to bindings, but IN EXCEPTIONALLY FINE CONDITION INSIDE AND OUT. This is a bespoke copy of the definitive edition of Whitman's works, compiled, edited, and shepherded through publication by men who knew the poet and his work intimately. Though he scandalized 19th century America with his "immoral" verses, Whitman (1819-92) is now considered "one of the greatest American poets and the central one in terms of influence on twentieth-century American poetry." (ANB) Day cites him as "a source of energy and inspiration, and an indicator of new ways to deal with the subtleties of spiritual truth," while PMM dubbed him "the Poet and the Prophet of Democracy." The text here was prepared by Whitman's close friends and literary executors--Canadian psychiatrist and Whitman biographer Richard Bucke; Philadelphia attorney Thomas Harned; and the Boswell to Whitman's Johnson, Horace Traubel--along with Oscar Triggs, literature professor at the University of Chicago and one of Whitman's early champions. The first three volumes (of which the present set lacks the third volume) are devoted to "Leaves of Grass" and other poems, with the remaining seven volumes containing all of Whitman's prose writings, with an index and a bibliography in the final volume. The present set lacks the limitation statement that accompanies the Book-Lover's Edition (as noted by Myerson), but in its place is a leaf at the beginning of each volume stating that this set was "extra illustrated with Water Colors, rare prints, Etchings and Photogravures, with special designs, for Mrs. C. C. Furbush." Though we have been unable to learn anything more about Mrs. Furbush, she clearly had excellent (and very expensive) tastes. The bindings here are exquisitely gilt and inlaid, feature gorgeous full leather doublures, and make a striking appearance on the shelf. It is obvious that these volumes have seen very little use, because they look almost untouched more than a century after their creation. (This set was purchased on purpose with a volume missing, simply because the books are so beautiful; nobody would reject Penelope Cruz or Bradley Cooper for missing a tooth.).
Seller: Phillip J. Pirages Rare Books (ABAA), McMinnville, OR, U.S.A.
Price: US$10995.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: " Issued under the editorial supervision of his Literary Executors, Richard Maurice Bucke, Thomas B. Harned, and Horace L. Traubel. With additional bibliographical and critical material prepared by Oscar Lovell Triggs, Ph.D." Ten volume set bound in 3/4 dark green leather over light green-and-cream marbled-paper-covered boards, limited #144 of 300 sets; Leaves of Grass in three volumes and Prose Works in seven volumes, clean tight and unmarked with the only flaw being spines uniformly sun-faded to light brown [as is common] and front cover of Prose Works Vol. VII similarly affected [see photos]; very slightest of light rubs to binding corners, scarcely noticeable
Seller: Stony Hill Books, Madison, WI, U.S.A.
Whitman, Walt. The Complete Writings (in 10 vols). G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1902.
Price: US$11500.00 + shipping
Description: Limited to 300 numbered sets printed on Ruisdael hand-made paper (of which this is #92), signed by the publisher. Ten large octavo volumes (236 x 166 mm). Publisher's three-quarter dark green morocco over marbled boards ruled in gilt. Spines lettered and decoratively tooled in gilt in compartments in a floral design, top edge gilt, others uncut, marbled endpapers. Etched and photogravure frontispieces and plates, with descriptive tissue guards. A Fine set. Journalist, essayist, and poet who revolutionized American literature with such poems as I Sing the Body Electric and Song of Myself, which asserted the beauty of the human body, physical health, and sexuality. "Always the champion of the common man, Whitman is both the poet and the prophet of democracy. The whole of Leaves of Grass is imbued with the spirit of brotherhood and a pride in the democracy of the young American nation. In a sense, it is America's second Declaration of Independence: that of 1776 was political, this of 1855 intellectual" (Printing and the Mind of Man). Here, drawn together in a beautiful binding, are some of Whitman's most influential and important works. Myerson B4.
Seller: Whitmore Rare Books, Inc. -- ABAA, ILAB, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$13750.00 + shipping
Description: 10 volumes. The Paumanok Edition, one of only 300 numbered sets printed on Ruisdael handmade paper. With illustrations in gravure and aquatint on japon vellum in each volume, colour frontispiece of Whitman to Volume I, tissue guards intact as issued. Large, thick 8vo, beautifully presented in fine period bindings of three-quarter crushed honey morocco over subtle marbled boards, the turnovers gilt ruled at the borders, the spine with art nouveau decorations incorporating raised bands gilt decorated and gilt ruled, the largest compartment with fine gilt and black tooled art nouveau intertwining decorations, one compartment lettered in gilt, t.e.g., others uncut. xcvi, 294; xiii, 323; vii, 297; xi, 324; vii, 301; v,318; v, 281, v, 300; xviii, 230; v, 309 pp. A very handsome, fine and bright, attractive and especially well preserved set. A RARE AND BEAUTIFUL SET, on fine paper with Gothic titles, illustrated title pages and finely engraved portraits of the author, the people in his life and other important personages of the age. There is a fine introduction to LEAVES OF GRASS and the set also includes an important biography of the poet by Bucke, Harned, and Traubel. There are here presented, the greatest poem of America in its most complete format, and volumes of the wonderful prose writings of Whitman including the inclusion of SPECIMEN DAYS and other significant works. Whitmans LEAVES OF GRASS portrayed America at the crossroads between an old world, soon to be cast off, and the new world of our future present. With the publication of LEAVES OF GRASS in 1855, Whitman, the poet of democracy, ushered in a new era in American letters, describing specifically American experiences in a distinctly American idiom. From its first publication in 1855, he had complete confidence in the greatness of both the book and its author. "Always the champion of the common man, Whitman is both the poet and the prophet of democracy. The whole of LEAVES OF GRASS is imbued with the spirit of brotherhood and a pride in the democracy of the young American nation. In a sense, it is Americas second Declaration of Independence: that of 1776 was political, this of 1855 intellectual. .The poems are saturated with a vehemence of pride and audacity of freedom necessary to loosen the mind of still-to-be-formed America from the folds, the superstitions, and all the long, tenacious, and stifling anti-democratic authorities of Asiatic and European past. To the young nation, only just becoming aware of an individual literary identity distinct from its European origins, Whitmans message and his outspoken confidence came at a decisive moment. LEAVES OF GRASS was Whitmans favorite child. From the time of its original publication,.until the year of his death, he continued revising and enlarging it. If (his) reputation has fluctuated over the years and his position among, if indeed not at the head of, the list of great American poets was not assured until some time after his death, there was never any doubt of the matter in his own mind. I know I am deathless, he wrote. Whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait. Time has vindicated his conviction." PMM One of the rare opportunities to acquire this comprehensive set from one of the greatest of American poets.
Seller: Buddenbrooks, Inc., Newburyport, MA, U.S.A.
Price: US$20000.00 + shipping
Description: 2/32, signed by the publisher, Jeanette L. Gilder and the notary. Quarto. 294, 323, 318pp. with Vol. IV, 282pp., Vol. V, 300pp., Vol. VII, 309pp. Publisher's Deluxe original light brown Morocco binding with decorative gilt, green and pink floral design, gilt ruling on covers and spine; raised bands. Inside covers in light brown Morocco with gilt floral design with red accents, gilt ruling and floral inlay in purple and green with gilt outline on green leather square in centers. Top edges gilt. Bottom and foredge untrimmed. Green silk moire endpapers. Silk ribbon markers. No. 2 of 32 sets of the Author's Manuscript Edition, numbered and signed by the publisher on colophon, retaining the original manuscript leaf in volume one. Printed on Whatman handmade paper with frontispiece in two states, the manuscript leaf bound into the first volume, preceded by certification leaf signed by Jeanette L. Gilder, with seal and signature of the notary, dated May 19, 1902. Two frontispiece portraits of Whitman, one in color, one in b/w, etched by Jaques Reich from the same photograph by Thomas Eakins, with printed tissue guard indicating it to be Whitman's last photograph. Title page with elaborated floral design in green, title printed in red, and green lettering in green double frame. The enclosed manuscript page is from Whitman's "Specimen Days & Collect," first printed by Rees Welsh & Co., Philadelphia, 1882, on page 180., and reproduced in the New England Magazine, New Series. August, 1892, Volume VI, No. 6, and quoted Sylvester Baxter in "Walt Whitman in Boston," pp. 714-721, on page 717. The manuscript consists of twenty-two lines (8 x 4 5/8") with fifteen hand corrections in the text. With three additional volumes, IV, V, and VII, from the same set of "The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman," 2/32, all signed and numbered by the publisher.
Seller: ERIC CHAIM KLINE, BOOKSELLER (ABAA ILAB), Santa Monica, CA, U.S.A.
Whitman, Walt. The Complete Writings. New York: G. P. Putnams Sons, 1902.
Price: US$45000.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First edition of the first comprehensive collection of Whitmans work. This is the rare deluxe issue printed on Japan vellum, number 2 of only 10 such sets, in the magnificent original morocco binding. Bound in is a fine autograph letter signed by Whitman (2pp, Camden, 30 January 1876) to Jeanette Gilder, then literary critic of the New York Herald. After discussing personal matters, the poet writes out for Gilder a letter he has written to the Heralds editor seeking to promote his new book, Two Rivulets. Writing that letter in full, Whitman states: Editor Herald. Would like to have say a four or five column article for the paper embodying the poems, &c. of my new book Two Rivulets, to publish say eight or ten days before their issue by me? making a resume of the book in advance giving the principal pieces, (hitherto unpublished& to be first printed in said article.) If so, I will make out such an article & send you, for your determination. The price would be $200. I have thought that as you like to have things in advance& also to give variety to the papersuch a proposition might be acceptable. If not, no harm done. WW. Whitman left his literary legacy in the hands of the three men who had been among his closest companions and fiercest champions during the last twenty or so years of his life: Horace Traubel, Richard Maurice Bucke, and Thomas Harned. In their zeal to ensure what they saw as Whitmans rightful place in American literature, immediately following Whitmans death they began to publish from among the letters, manuscript notes, prose fragments, and other writings Whitman had left behind. Their efforts culminated ten years after Whitman had died in the first comprehensive collection of Whitmans work: the ten-volume Complete Writings of Walt Whitman, published by G.P. Putnams Sons in 1902, illustrated with manuscript facsimiles and numerous photographs and paintings of the poet. The executors also supplied an authorized biography of Whitman for the first volume, and Oscar Lovell Triggs contributed a bibliography and other critical apparatus for the last volume. See Graham in Walt Whitman Encyclopedia. This magnificent edition of Whitmans works is noteworthy for its importance, limitation, paper, binding, and accompanying letter. A more desirable Whitman set cannot be found. 10 volumes. Ten frontispieces and five plates, each in three states. Publishers certificate of limitation stating that this is set number 2 of 10 printed on Japan vellum. Notarized certificate signed by Jeanette Gilder concerning the accompanying Whitman letter. Magnificent original green morocco gilt with red, white and black floral morocco onlays, t.e.g., others uncut; velvet doublures and linings. Very minimal wear. A stunning set.
Seller: 19th Century Rare Book & Photograph Shop, Stevenson, MD, U.S.A.