Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
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$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$2500.00 + shipping
Description: The Book Lover's Camden Edition limited to 500 numbered copies of which this is number 410, signed by the editors and literary executors for Whitman, Richard Maurice Bucke, Thomas B. Harned, and Horace L. Traubel. Quarter cream vellum and gray paper over boards with cream vellum corner tips, decorated gold embossed spines, top edges gilt, outer and bottom edges rough trimmed. From the library of Carleton Noyes, author of "An Approach to Walt Whitman", with his pencil markings throughout and his bookplate pasted over the original printed bookplate in each volume. This set has been well read by Carleton Noyes with the hinges tender in most volumes and his pencil notes and markings throughout. The spines have darkened a bit with a few bumped corners, the 9th volume has a 1 inch split at the front lower joint with two of the three illustrations in that volume loose in the binding, small black ink stain to bottom of spine on volume 10, else a good plus, attractive set without dust jackets
Seller: J. HOOD, BOOKSELLERS, ABAA/ILAB, Baldwin City, KS, 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.