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WHITMAN, Walt. Specimen Days & Collect. David McKay, Philadelphia, 1882.

Price: US$300.00 + shipping

Description: 1882-'83 First Edition, second printing with the McKay imprint, Octavo, original mustard cloth over boards, gilt stamping on front cover and spine, decorative endpapers. Black and white portrait plate between pages 122 and 123, a collection of short prose. Good, moderate wear, rubbing to spine ends and corners, hinge badly cracked but holding, end papers torn at gutters.

Seller: Yesterday's Gallery, ABAA, East Woodstock, CT, U.S.A.

Whitman, Walt. Specimen Days & Collect. David McKay, 1882.

Price: US$389.86 + shipping

Condition: Good

Description: hardback, octavo, olive green cloth lettered gilt and with a design of a butterfly in gilt to the spine. Patterned endpapers. Cloth mildly discoloured, a few small splash marks and a trace of a water stain to the foot of the upper board - not penetrating. The binding remains tight, dated signature of a previous owner, Robert Stuart of Dunedin, April 1883 to the front free endpaper and some light pencil annotation to the rear blanks. Whitman obituary notice from the Otago Witneess is tipped-in at the rear pastedown. The body of text is free of marking. Portrait of Whitman (and butterfly) at pp 122/123, 374pp

Seller: Pendleburys - the bookshop in the hills, Llanwrda, United Kingdom

Whitman, Walt. SPECIMEN DAYS AND COLLECT. David McKay 1882/1883, Philadelphia, 1882.

Price: US$500.00 + shipping

Description: Octavo, vi, 376 pages. In Very Good minus condition. Bound in mustard yellow cloth with gilt lettering and decoration on spine. Mild shelf wear. Fraying to cloth on head and tail of spine. Bumping to corners. Age toning to interior pages. Decorated endpapers. Shelved in Case 13. A reprint by David McKay of the 1882-83 Rees Welsh and Co. edition, following their late 1882 takeover of Rees Welsh's publishing activities. BAL 21627. 1374755. Shelved Dupont Bookstore.

Seller: Second Story Books, ABAA, Rockville, MD, U.S.A.

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 Harned’s copy, with his bookplate. Whitman’s friend Harned was one of the poet’s literary executors, alog with Horace Traubel and Richard B. Bucke. David McKay at Rees Welsh, Whitman’s 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 Whitman’s 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 Whitman’s 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. Specimen Days & Collect. David McKay, Philadelphia, 1882.

Price: US$9500.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: First edition, second issue with the McKay imprint. Some moderate erosion to the cloth on the spine, paper over the front hinge starting, else a very good copy. Very nicely Inscribed by Whitman to a fellow author: "To Churchill Williams from his friend the Author with love. December 27, 1883." Francis (or Frank) Churchill Williams was the son of a successful playwright, and an 1891 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (where he was class president in his senior year). Aside from publishing two novels (including an interesting book about Philadelphia politics, *J. Devlin, Boss*), he was an active member of the Philadelphia publishing world as a journalist, editor, and publisher. He apparently was well-known to most of the literary figures of the time, and is recorded as a guest at Mark Twain's 70th birthday party. Something of a literary prodigy at Germantown Academy where he attended high school, Whitman's inscription was written to Williams when the latter was 14 years old, a freshman at Germantown, and already winning literary prizes. Presumably Whitman, ensconced across the river in Camden, was warmly acquainted with young Williams, as the affectionate inscription would seem to indicate. Whitman was an active and agreeable signer, but for whatever reason, *Specimen Days* isn't often found signed by its author, especially with this degree of affection.

Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.