The Walt Whitman Archive
In Whitman's Hand
Manuscripts
About this Item
Title: left with Andrew
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: 1854 or 1855
Whitman Archive ID: tex.00001
Source: The Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note: This manuscript shows a listing of the poems for the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, with working titles, as well as various mathematical calculations relating to the length and arrangment of the volume. It was likely composed in 1854 or early in 1855. Ed Folsom has written at length about this manuscript and its significance. See "Walt Whitman's Working Notes for the First Edition of Leaves of Grass," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, 16 (Fall 1998), 90–95.
Related item: A series of draft lines on the back of this manuscript relate to several of the poems that appeared in the first edition of Leaves of Grass. See tex.00057.
Contributors to digital file: Jeannette Schollaert, Kevin McMullen, Nicole Gray, and Ken Price
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![[Page image: https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/1026verso.jpg]](https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/1026verso.jpg)
left with Andrew
5 pages MS.
figure
A large ship under her full power of steady forward motion
40
40
1600
5
8000
28 lines
40 letters
1120
1120 letters in page of Skakspere's poems
1600 letters in one of my closely written MS pages like page 2
[illegible]
| 1120) | 8000 | (7 |
| 7840 | ||
| 160 |
| 1600 | ||
| 4 | ||
| 1160) | 6400 | (5 |
| 5800 | ||
| 600 |
| 2 | for frontispiece & fly |
| 2 | for title & blank |
| 15—1 | |
| 13 2 | |
| 12 3 | I celebrate myself ✓ |
| 9 4 | |
| 13 5 | |
| 4½ | A young man came to me ✓ A child went forth ✓ |
| 4 | sauntering the pavement, ✓ |
| 9 | great are the myths, ✓ |
| 9 | I wander all night |
| 10 | Come closer to me ✓ |
| 5 | Who learns my lesson complete & Clear the way there Jonathan ✓ |
| 2 | Resurgemus |
| 5— | Road and others To think through the retrospection ✓ |
| 3 | Blacks ✓ |
| 127 | ||
| 1600 | ||
| 76200 | ||
| 127 | ||
| 1120) | 203200 | (181 |
| 1120 | ||
| 9120 | ||
| 8960 | ||
| 1600 | ||
| 1120 |
about 127 pages MS 1600 letters to page
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![[Page image: https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/0001026.jpg]](https://whitmanarchive.org/manuscripts/figures/0001026.jpg)