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WHITMAN, WALT. Drum-Taps (1865) and Sequel to Drum-Taps (1865-1866) [Drum Taps]. Walt Whitman, New York and Washington, 1865.

Price: US$9500.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: FIRST EDITION OF WHITMAN'S IMPORTANT COLLECTION OF CIVIL WAR POEMS. THE PREFERRED "SECOND ISSUE" WITH THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE "SEQUEL" CONTAINING POEMS WHITMAN WROTE AFTER THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. Drum-Taps, Walt Whitman's first book of poems not entitled Leaves of Grass, emerged from seismic shifts in Walt Whitman the man, Walt Whitman the writer, and the American nation. While Leaves of Grass is a work of joyful exuberance, youthful exploration, sexual liberation, and a metaphorical consummation of a man's love for his nation, Drum-Taps offers no such euphoric exaltations. After years of civil war, Whitman could no longer embrace the nation as a unified land of hope, open spaces, and endless possibilities; indeed, after visiting his brother George on the battlefield in 1863, Whitman famously joined the war effort - not as a soldier - but as a nurse. Beside the injured and dying men on the battlefields, Whitman soberly experienced a new America - one with great suffering and bloodshed. One of the early works published after the American Civil War, Drum-Taps reflects a personal and national transition from innocence to experience. Aware of the drastic changes in his nation and his poetry, Whitman made the rare decision not to publish his new poems through a revision of Leaves of Grass, but rather, for the first time, to publish an entirely new book of poems, with its own name. Drum-Taps, a title that echoes the aftermath of the war, is a far more sobering title than Leaves of Grass. During the final stage of the war, Whitman, eager to publish Drum-Taps as quickly as possible, declared in his journal: "I intend to move heaven & earth to publish my 'Drum Taps.'" A paper shortage, however, threatened his plans, and rather than wait until the price of paper went down as his publisher Peter Eckler suggested, Whitman opted to find a more affordable way to print by ordering larger paper (which was more cost efficient) and squeezing his poems together wherever he could find space, a process he called "condensing." Thus, the poems are not so much arranged thematically, as economically; and he did manage to shift his vision of Drum-Taps from a 120 page volume to one of about 72 pages. As he did with Leaves of Grass, Whitman scrupulously watched over the printing process of Drum-Taps. If this were the complete story of Drum-Taps, the work would deserve a central place in Whitman's oeuvre. But like so much in Whitman's writing and life, the publication of Drum-Taps took a surprisingly dramatic turn. While the copies were coming off the printing presses in mid April of 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. Rather than continue with the printing and binding, Whitman halted the process, fearing that the book was now unfinished without sufficient recognition of Abraham Lincoln's death. Over the next few months, Whitman hurriedly wrote an additional eighteen poems including some of his most famous and celebrated ones honoring Abraham Lincoln such as "When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd" and "Oh, Captain! My Captain!" Remarkably, the revised book was ready by November of 1865. Always with an eye toward economy, Whitman chose to sew together the original Drum-Taps with the eighteen post-assassination poems, which he called Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd and Other Pieces. Whitman chose for the title a font comprised of broken limbs and branches, alluding to the fragmented nation attempting to regrow. We see his love for the symbolic with his fragmented publication date: 1865-6. The date and the poems bridge the final year of the war with the first year of reconstruction. Whitman the book-printer is known to have personally sewn books together as he did when he later incorporated Drum-Taps into the 1867 version of Leaves of Grass. In this book, too, we see the stitching of a careful hand threading the Drum-Taps and Sequel to Drum-Taps together. The act of sewing

Seller: Manhattan Rare Book Company, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.

Whitman, Walt. [Whitman, Walt- Very Fine Copy of the Exceedingly Scarce First Issue Drum-Taps, Presented by Whitman to a Boy Nextdoor, As Recorded by the Boy's Subsequent Presentation Inscription Years Later] Drum-Taps. First edition. New York, 1865.

Price: US$27500.00 + shipping

Description: 7 1 4 x 4 1 2 inches. 72pp. Original publisher's brown sand-grain cloth with blind-stamped triple-rule frame, front cover with bold gilt-blocked circular background in horizontal weave, surrounded by single circular gilt frame; the back cover with exact same motif, but in blind. A FINE COPY, with virtually no signs of wear. PRESENTATION COPY FROM WALT WHITMAN TO A NEIGHBOR BOY, LEONARD HORNER, in the hand of the recipient (though as an older man), as follows: "Presented to Leonard Horner by Walt Whitman- (in Person) Jan - 1885-- (to be given to his Mother),î written in wavering hand on the front free fly. As well, there is are signature initials on the upper right of the same page, "PEH," more than likely the party to which Horner later presented the book. Regarding this superb Presentation, Ted Genoways, Whitman scholar, makes these following fascinating observations: ìThe name ìWm. Leonard Hornerî (apparently in his own hand) appears in one of Whitmanís notebooks for early 1885, at which time he was only 9 or 10 years old and lived near Whitman in Camden. (Whitmanís house was just off South Fourth Street; Hornerís family lived on South Fifth.) Based on his young age at the time of Presentation, it is likely that this inscription was made late in life as a memento for whomever Horner was giving it to (perhaps ìPEH.î) All of this would go a long way toward explaining the rare first binding version of the book. Whitman bound some copies but seems to have largely withheld themóprobably because of the evolving events around Lincolnís death and burial.î Interestingly, Hornerís father, George, sold retail groceries in Camden and specialized in butter. Young Leonard may have been a delivery boy for his father, and came to meet Whitman on his deliveries. Drum-Taps was first published (privately) as a separate book of 53 poems (72pp.) in 1865, first by Peter Eckler. However, Eckler actually subcontracted with another printer named Alvord, who did the actual printing. The second edition of Drum-Taps, which is much more commonly available today, included eighteen more poems (often termed the "Sequel" to Drum-Taps). The first printing (as per our copy) was contracted to print on April 1, 1865, and Whitman reported it was "now to press" on April 26 and would be ready for delivery to the binder by the beginning of May. Whitman then wrote to Eckler on May 3, 1865, to deliver the sheets to the binder. As for the Second Edition ("The Sequel"), Whitman famously halted the original dispersal of his newly printed book in order to add, especially, one poem, and then finally a 24-page sequel of poetry, the second edition, which became widely referred to as "The Sequel to Drum-Taps." The background and history of the events is palpably heartbreaking. In the morning of April 15, 1865, newspapers began to unfold the terrible news of the assassination of President Lincoln, and Whitman, deeply saddened by his passing, felt a responsibility to use his book as a vehicle for grieving. Over the following months Whitman split time between Brooklyn and the Capitol while also adding several additions to his compilation of poems. His poem "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," added to the sequel, became extremely popular, and arguably his final and perhaps greatest single success of his career. Not to be lost in all of this, and especially for the historian and bibliographer, the second printing far outsold and remained in circulation to a far greater degree than the true first edition. To be sure, the first edition, without the Sequel, is one of the great "holy grail" unobtainable Whitman objects of importance in the bibliographic world. How rare is the first issue? Very few copies of the first issue have found their way to the marketplace (we have not been able to locate one in the past 30 years). Ed Folsom, Whitman scholar, declares (private communication) "The big question is how many of those original 500 printed sets of pages got bound? We know tha

Seller: Nudelman Rare Books, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.