Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. David McKay, Philadelphia, 1884.
Price: US$400.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 382p octavo, later printing of the 1883 McKay printing. Bluish gray endpapers, top edge gilt, olive green cloth edges untrimmed. Front inner hinges sound, corners good. Front endpaper chipped at the foredge and having a closed tear
Seller: Old New York Book Shop, ABAA, Atlanta, GA, U.S.A.
Whitman, Walt. LEAVES OF GRASS. David McKay, Philadelphia, 1884.
Price: US$400.00 + shipping
Description: Octavo, 382 pages. In Fair condition. Bound in Green-brown cloth with gilt lettering on spine and front cover. Boards have bumping and rubbing to corners, tearing to front joint, cloth beginning to separate from spine at front joint, fraying and tearing to spine edges, mild edge and shelf wear. Textblock has front endpaper detached, splitting to front interior hinge, bookplate on front pastedown, splitting to rear interior hinge, and mild age toning to pages. Portrait facing page 29, no annex in rear. Shelved Case 13. 1374669. Shelved Dupont Bookstore.
Seller: Second Story Books, ABAA, Rockville, MD, U.S.A.
Price: US$400.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: This is a Philadelphia reprint of a Boston edition issued in 1881, which edition is regarded often as the seventh edition of this work which Whitman actively revised continuously until his death. The Boston reprint was issued by James R. Osgood, and the plates for that 1881 edition were used by Philadelphia publisher Rees Welsh in an 1882 issue. Rees Welsh then turned over the plates to David McKay for this printing. McKay reissued the identical version in 1885 and 1886. 8vo. 19.5 by 13 cm. 382 pp. Condition: light stains on the mustard colored cloth. Spine somewhat darkened. A light ding or bump on front right edge. Vestigal outline of paper clip on FFEP and first blank leaf. Decorative bookplate pasted onto FEP. Title page ever so slightly attached to front blank leaf by hinge as if the page had been tipped in, although it wasn't.
Seller: White Fox Rare Books, ABAA/ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
WALT WHITMAN. LEAVES OF GRASS. DAVID MCKAY, PHILADELPHIA, 1884.
Price: US$515.31 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Mustard yellow cloth, gilt. Cloth darkened in places. Rubbed to extremities with some wear to corners and head and heel of spine. Title page dated 1884, with copyright notice to imprint page of 1881. Spine has gilt LEAVES OF GRASS in rustic font, with Walt Whitman's signature in gilt to the front board. The binding remains solid. Some occasional foxing to prelims, thereafter clean. Olive / grey leaf endpapers. The book also contains a receipt dated May 30th 189/ (final digit not given) from "Dr to Matthews and Brooke, Booksellers", receipting the book for 7/6. Enclosed is also a ms letter from the Rev Canon Bright of 8 George Street, Carlisle, dated May 4th 1897, enquiring after a translation of Tertullian. An unusual piece of history and an early edition of Walt Whitman's highly influential work. Great.
Seller: Tobo Books, Portsmouth, United Kingdom
Walt Whit man. Leaves of Grass. David McKay, Philadelphia, 1884.
Price: US$665.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Bound in medium olive-green cloth with front cover and spine lettered in gilt, top page edges gilt, outer and lower page edges uncut, some signatures unopened, endpapers light speckled blue, previous owner name in upper right corner of front free endpaper; 382 pages, lacking the Annex, tissue-guarded portrait of Whitman facing page 29; internally clean tight and unmarked, all cover edges very lightly rubbed, outer cover corners lightly bumped, spine lightly age-darkened
Seller: Stony Hill Books, Madison, WI, U.S.A.
Whitman Walt. LEAVES OF GRASS. Philadelphia David McKay 1884, 1884.
Price: US$764.50 + shipping
Description: First Edition Thus. Engraved portrait of Whitman on card, as in the first edition, and with the tissue guard as issued. Tall 8vo, publishers original medium olive-brown S cloth, lettered and decorated in gilt on the spine and with the authors autograph rendered in gilt on the upper cover. Binding A, diagonal fine-ribbed, with light blue vein-pattterned endpapers, top edge gilt. 382 pp. A pleasing copy and very well preserved indeed, some normal evidence of age or use, the text-block clean and the portrait fine, the hinges tight and firm. FIRST EDITION THUS. THE PHILADELPHIA EDITION AND A SCARCE ISSUE OF THIS AMERICAN MASTERWORK. AN IMPORTANT PRINTING. Whitmans LEAVES OF GRASS portrayed America at the crossroads between an old world, soon to be caste off, and the new world of our future present. "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
Seller: Buddenbrooks, Inc., Newburyport, MA, U.S.A.