Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Rees Welsh, Philadelphia, 1882.
Price: US$288.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Bound in publisher's original green cloth with the front cover and spine stamped in gilt. Both hinges are weak. Minor wear to the extremities. Pages 99-118 loose and laid-in.
Seller: James & Mary Laurie, Booksellers A.B.A.A, Minneapolis, MN, U.S.A.
[WHITMAN, Walt]. Leaves of Grass.. Rees Welsh & Co., Philadelphia, 1882.
Price: US$450.00 + shipping
Description: 382 pp. 8vo, publisher's gold gilt cloth. First Philadelphia edition; 4th to 7th printings. A reprint from the slightly altered plates of the Boston, 1881-82 edition. BAL 21419. Two faint cup rings and some other light use to cloth. Contents clean, tight and sound. Publisher's advertising flyer tipped in at front; second flyer laid in.
Seller: Jeffrey H. Marks, Rare Books, ABAA, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Rees Welsh & Co., Philadelphia, 1882.
Price: US$500.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: 382 pp., 1 b/w engraving of the author. Early edition of Leaves of Grass, sort of olive green original colored cloth bound hard cover book with new end papers. Book shows some light edge wear & wear to the head & heel of the spine. Gold foil title stamping to the front cover & spine fully legible. Now housed in professionally made green slip case w/brown leather label on spine. Binding solid.
Seller: Ross & Haines Old Book Co., Hudson, WI, U.S.A.
Price: US$500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: This is a Philadelphia reprint of a Boston edition issued the year prior, and which is regarded often as the seventh edition of this work which Whitman actively revised continuously until his death. 8vo. 19.5 by 13 cm. 382 pp. Condition: light blistering of mustard-colored cloth of cover. Some darkening of spine. A few light stains on cover besides. Inside front cover with a mounted owner's decorative bookplate. Interior leaves age toned but otherwise quite clean. A tight copy.
Seller: White Fox Rare Books, ABAA/ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. Rees Welsh & Company, 1882.
Price: US$500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Seventh edition early printing. Very little wear, little read. First edition printed in Philadelphia after the Ticknor-Osgood edition was banned in Boston. Gilt on Mustard colored boards. Mint engraving of Whitman opposite page 29 with tissue protector. Tipped into front a notice which reads "Ready in September Whitman's prose works Specimen days and Collect, Price $2.00, Leaves of Grass, Price $2.00 A nice copy.
Seller: Hill Country Books, Ctr Sandwich, NH, U.S.A.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Rees Welsh & Co., Philadelphia, 1882.
Price: US$579.72 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Reprint. 8vo. Pp 382. Engraved portrait pate (foxed) opposite page 29. Light, marbled endpapers. Original cloth, slight lean, slight wear. No inscriptions. A nice copy, well above average.
Seller: Leakey's Bookshop Ltd., Inverness, United Kingdom
Walt Whitman. The Leaves of Grass. Philadelphia: Rees Welsh & Co, 1882.
Price: US$600.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman. Philadelphia: Rees Welsh & Co., 1882. Later edition, a reprint from the corrected plates of the 1881-82 Boston edition. Publisher's gilt stamped cloth with butterfly motif to spine. 7 1/2 x 5 inches; 382 pp., engraved portrait of Whitman inserted opposite "Song of Myself." Hinges cracked, minor markings to endpapers and some marginal pencil annotation, spine tips and corners rubbed. On of the last editions published during Whitman's lifetime, this is reprint of the 1881-82 Boston edition with corrections made to the plates. The edition includes the famous engraved portrait of Whitman at 37 from the 1855 edition. BAL 21419. A very good copy
Seller: Neverland Books, waalre, Netherlands
WHITMAN, WALT. Specimen Days & Collect. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1882-'83, 1882.
Price: US$800.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: FIRST EDITION, second printing, first issue. Thomas Harneds copy, with his bookplate. Whitmans friend Harned was one of the poets literary executors, alog with Horace Traubel and Richard B. Bucke. David McKay at Rees Welsh, Whitmans new publisher following the Boston Leaves of Grass controversy agreed to publish this autobiographical work, which Whitman called the most wayward, spontaneous, fragmentary book ever printed. McKay took over the firm in 1882 and used his own name in the imprint for the second and subsequent printings. The book includes not only Specimen Days but also many of Whitmans other prose writings, including Democratic Vistas, his essay on the Death of Abraham Lincoln, his various prefaces, and the prose stream from Two Rivulets. Surprisingly, Whitman also decided to include some of his early and long-forgotten fiction and pre-Leaves poetry. The book was another Whitman compendium, bringing between one set of covers a diverse group of writings, but this time presenting them in uniform type and sequential pagination. He thought of it as a prose volume to match his Leaves of Grass, and Rees Welsh published it in a matching binding so that buyers could own an attractive set of Whitmans work (Folsom, Walt Whitman as a Maker of Books, Whitman Archive). Opposite p. 122 appears the famous photograph of Whitman with a butterfly perched on his finger. The butterfly was made of paper, though Whitman, likely joking, sometimes asserted that it was real. The butterfly appears on the spine of the book. Original olive-brown cloth. Fine. A lovely copy.
Seller: 19th Century Rare Book & Photograph Shop, Stevenson, MD, U.S.A.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Rees Welsh & Co, Philadelphia, 1882.
Price: US$8500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Reprint utilizing slightly altered plates from the 1881-82 Boston edition. Signed by Walt Whitman on the first blank sheet, inscribed "J. William Thompson from the author." Thompson was London lawyer who corresponded with Whitman, occasionally ordering books directly from the author. Bound in publisher's mustard cloth stamped in gilt. Very Good, cloth soiled, lightly mottled, worn at spine ends. BAL 21419.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.