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10 volumes. The Paumanok Edition, one of only 300 numbered sets printed on Ruisdael handmade paper. With illustrations in gravure and aquatint on japon vellum in each volume, colour frontispiece of Whitman to Volume I, tissue guards intact as issued. Large, thick 8vo, beautifully presented in fine period bindings of three-quarter crushed honey morocco over subtle marbled boards, the turnovers gilt ruled at the borders, the spine with art nouveau decorations incorporating raised bands gilt decorated and gilt ruled, the largest compartment with fine gilt and black tooled art nouveau intertwining decorations, one compartment lettered in gilt, t.e.g., others uncut. xcvi, 294; xiii, 323; vii, 297; xi, 324; vii, 301; v,318; v, 281, v, 300; xviii, 230; v, 309 pp. A very handsome, fine and bright, attractive and especially well preserved set. A RARE AND BEAUTIFUL SET, on fine paper with Gothic titles, illustrated title pages and finely engraved portraits of the author, the people in his life and other important personages of the age. There is a fine introduction to LEAVES OF GRASS and the set also includes an important biography of the poet by Bucke, Harned, and Traubel. There are here presented, the greatest poem of America in its most complete format, and volumes of the wonderful prose writings of Whitman including the inclusion of SPECIMEN DAYS and other significant works. Whitman s LEAVES OF GRASS portrayed America at the crossroads between an old world, soon to be cast off, and the new world of our future present. With the publication of LEAVES OF GRASS in 1855, Whitman, the poet of democracy, ushered in a new era in American letters, describing specifically American experiences in a distinctly American idiom. From its first publication in 1855, he had complete confidence in the greatness of both the book and its author. "Always the champion of the common man, Whitman is both the poet and the prophet of democracy. The whole of LEAVES OF GRASS is imbued with the spirit of brotherhood and a pride in the democracy of the young American nation. In a sense, it is America s second Declaration of Independence: that of 1776 was political, this of 1855 intellectual. .The poems are saturated with a vehemence of pride and audacity of freedom necessary to loosen the mind of still-to-be-formed America from the folds, the superstitions, and all the long, tenacious, and stifling anti-democratic authorities of Asiatic and European past . To the young nation, only just becoming aware of an individual literary identity distinct from its European origins, Whitman s message and his outspoken confidence came at a decisive moment. LEAVES OF GRASS was Whitman s favorite child. From the time of its original publication,.until the year of his death, he continued revising and enlarging it. If (his) reputation has fluctuated over the years and his position among, if indeed not at the head of, the list of great American poets was not assured until some time after his death, there was never any doubt of the matter in his own mind. I know I am deathless , he wrote. Whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait. Time has vindicated his conviction." PMM One of the rare opportunities to acquire this comprehensive set from one of the greatest of American poets. Seller Inventory # 24142
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