“There is a certain poise of self-pride about the book that offends many.” – Whitman on Leaves of Grass

This delightful Whitman manuscript is an extended reflection promoting Leaves of Grass. He heads the piece “Walt Whitman’s ‘second wind,” noting that “Although the phrase may not be thought a very refined one, there is no description that so thoroughly hits the mark as the one foregoing borrowed from the vocabulary of the prize ring.”

Confident in his Americanism and the prophetic element in his poetry, he declares, “It is very certain not only that its pages could not have been written anywhere else except in America and at the present, but that the Secession War, or as he calls it ‘the Union War’ is their latent father, and that the result of that war gives an undertone or background of triumph & pride & prophecy to every page.”

At the top Whitman has added in pencil: “There is a certain poise of self-pride about the book that offends many.” This line indicates that Whitman refers to a new edition of Leaves of Grass, presumably the edition of 1867 or that of 1871.

This tremendous manuscript touches on many of the essential elements of Whitman’s life and work: Leaves of Grass, confidence, self-promotion, prophetic fervor, American exceptionalism, and the Civil War.

Provenance and publication: This manuscript was found among Whitman’s papers by his literary executor Richard Maurice Bucke, who printed it, albeit making errors and taking considerable editorial liberties with this text, in Notes and Fragments: Left by Walt Whitman (privately published, 1899).

$55,000