Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is a clarion call to his country's people to join together in the "crowning growth of the United States". Its patriotic zeal made him a symbol of democracy in his country long before he achieved fame there as a poet. The intense emotion of Whitman's verse celebrates the regenerative power of nature and the immortal divinity of the human soul. His passionate beliefs are evident throughout this volume - in the radical "I Sing the Body Electric"; the patriotic "I Hear America Singing"; and the romantic "As if a Phantom Caress'd Me". This collection (the so-called "deathbed" edition of 1892) represents the culmination of Whitman's life's work and contains more than 400 poems. This collector's edition includes an introduction by Malcolm Cowley and Whitman's original 1855 introduction.