LEAVES OF GRASS BY WALT WHITMAN 1891-92 DEATHBED EDITION

[WHITMAN, Walt (American, 1819 – 1892)]. Leaves of Grass. Published by David McKay Co., Philadelphia, 1891-92.

Deathbed Edition. Cloth-bound. Hardcover. Octavo (220 x 140 x 40 mm). Pp. 438. English text. Bound in publisher's original green cloth with gilt spine titles. Top page edges gilt. Rough cut fore edge and bottom edge. Portrait on page pg.29 with intact tissue guard. Facsimile of Walt Whitman's signature. Condition: GOOD to VERY GOOD. Binding tight, secure and square, with the joints and hinges intact. Slight bumping to spine ends and points. Browning to pp.2-3 where an insert was left, the interior otherwise very well-preserved. Ex-libris bookplate to front pastedown belonging to Mary Crosbie D'Oyley.

Notes: Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass, Deathbed Edition 1891-92, created from the 1888 sheets, two annexes added with the Market Street address on the publisher imprint. Published by David McKay, Philadelphia, copyrighted in 1891, published in 1892. Whitman's final arrangement of his magnum opus Leaves of Grass including Sands at Seventy, 1st Annex, Goodbye My Fancy, 2nd Annex, and A Backward Glance O'Er Travel'D Roads, and Portrait from Life. The complete edition with Whitman's last entries of 1891 and facsimile of Walt Whitman s signature. BAL 21441: Printing 2, Binding C. (No cancels. Author's name in facsimile autograph on spine). known as the Deathbed Edition, because Whitman's impending death forced him to create copies of his final edition of Leaves of Grass from the 1888 sheets with cancel title and contents leaves and with the annexes added. This edition contains the final revisions of Whitman s body of poems. He died just before the release of the first issue in 1892, and it has become the format for all further publications since. Rare.