Details
WHITMAN, Walt. Specimen Days and Collect. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1882-83. 8o. Photographic portrait of Whitman. Original olive-brown cloth, gilt-lettered on front cover and spine, blue-veined endpapers (extremities lightly rubbed, lightly shaken); slipcase.
FIRST EDITION, second printing, first issue. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY WHITMAN on the front free endpaper: "G.C. Macaulay from the author." In January, 1883, Whitman sent a letter to Josiah Child of Trübner & Co., his London publisher, accompanying two copies of his "new prose jumble" Specimen Days. He asked that one be forwarded to G.C. Macaulay. Macaulay, a critic for The Nineteenth Century, had written a mostly favorable review of Leaves of Grass, particularly admiring "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" (Correspondence, ed. E.H. Miller, vol. III, p. 319). This second printing and its subsequent issues were published after David McKay assumed the business of Rees Welch in 1882. BAL 21627; Meyerson A11.1.b<->1 (Binding A, but with Binding C endpapers, variant not noted).
FIRST EDITION, second printing, first issue. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY WHITMAN on the front free endpaper: "G.C. Macaulay from the author." In January, 1883, Whitman sent a letter to Josiah Child of Trübner & Co., his London publisher, accompanying two copies of his "new prose jumble" Specimen Days. He asked that one be forwarded to G.C. Macaulay. Macaulay, a critic for The Nineteenth Century, had written a mostly favorable review of Leaves of Grass, particularly admiring "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" (Correspondence, ed. E.H. Miller, vol. III, p. 319). This second printing and its subsequent issues were published after David McKay assumed the business of Rees Welch in 1882. BAL 21627; Meyerson A11.1.b<->1 (Binding A, but with Binding C endpapers, variant not noted).