Original drawing of Walt Whitman. no date, no place, 19th century

This original pen and ink drawing of Walt Whitman is mounted at the front of an 1888 edition of Leaves of Grass. The likeness of a jaunty, casual, Whitman wearing his trademark slouch hat takes its cue from the famous 1855 Hollyer engraving, but here we see an older Whitman with a full beard.

$4,800

The Penn Club requests the honour of your company at a reception to be given to Mr. Walt Whitman …. Philadelphia, March 27, [1880]

This is a rare invitation to an event held in Whitman’s honor at the prestigious private Penn Club in Philadelphia. Whitman, who wore a shabby coat festooned with dozens of pins, did not disappoint the curious.

$1,500

Poems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1882

Presentation copy inscribed by the author and artist Celia Thaxter: “Mary Mapes Dodge with much love. Illustrated by Celia Thaxter 1882.”

$22,000

Grand Concert in Aid of the Russian Jewish Refugees, Monday Eve’g, March 27, ’82, by the Handel and Haydn Society, in conjunction with Salem Oratorio Society, Lynn Choral Union, Taunton Beethoven Society, A Grand Orchestra…. Boston: Printed By Jewish Watchman Print[ers], 1882

This is the rare original announcement and program for a major early benefit concert supporting Jewish refugees from Russia. The concert was held at Mechanics Hall in Boston in 1882. The featured conductors are Carl Zerrahn and George Henschel. Henschel had become the first conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra a year earlier. Here he leverages his position to support Jewish refugees.

$1,900

Specimen Days & Collect. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1882-'83

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.

$800

Leaves of Grass. Boston: Osgood, 1881-82

First printing of the 7th edition of Leaves of Grass

$1,500

Walt Whitman … to which is added English Critics on Walt Whitman edited by Edward Dowden. Glasgow: Wilson and McCormick, 1884

FIRST EDITION, first British issue, comprising the American sheets (1883) plus a new section (pp. 237-255), Dowden’s work on the English critics of Whitman.

$800

Autograph manuscript signed “Walt Whitman on the Poets.”. No place, [1885]

In this fascinating manuscript Whitman provides a newspaper with an article defending himself against attacks that he did not respect the great American poets of the day.

$7,500

Haymarket Affair in The Chicago Daily News. Chicago: Daily News, May 5, 1886

The Haymarket Affair in Chicago was the most important event in American labor history. This dramatic Chicago newspaper reports on the events at the Haymarket, police actions, rioting, efforts to catch the bomb thrower, the roundup of anarchists, the discovery of the printed flyers for the mass meeting, and the reaction of Chicago businessmen.

$1,200

Autograph note signed to John H. Johnston. Camden, March 7, 1887

Whitman writes to his good friend and benefactor John H. Johnston, the New York jeweler, evidently congratulating him on the birth of his child: “Bless the dear baby, & all babies – Love to you & wife, Walt Whitman.”

$4,800