above in pink wrappers is unquestionably the first issue. The
second issue is bound in green cloth, gilt edges, and with the
title stamped in rustic letters in gilt on the front cover. The
last issue of this edition has all the points of the second
issue with eight pages of press notices bound in at the front.

Less than nine hundred copies were printed in July, 1855, in the
printshop of Andrew H. Rome, 98 Cranberry Street, Brooklyn, the
author assisting in the type composition and presswork. The
volume was placed on sale at Fowler & Wells, Broadway, New York,
and at Swaynes, in Fulton Street, Brooklyn, at two dollars, but
was later reduced to one dollar. Very few copies were sold;
Whitman giving almost the entire edition to critics and friends.

Catalogued from the Maier copy.

A reprint of this edition was issued in January, 1920, by Mr.
Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Maine.

1856

Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn, New York. 1856.

Second edition. Thirty-two poems.

Thick 16mo, green drab cloth, sprinkled edges. Title stamped in
gilt on face of binding; on back title and quotation from
Emerson's letter "I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great
Career, R. W. Emerson," portrait, same as in the first edition,
title, contents, iv, Leaves of Grass, pp. (5)-342, Leaves
Droppings (reprint of Emerson's letter; Whitman's letter to
Emerson and press notices), pp. 345-384, advertisement. Owing to
the storm of criticism which arose against the book, Fowler &
Wells, the New York publishers, refused to put their name on the
title page, and though they attended to all the details of
presswork and distribution, the volume was issued from Brooklyn,
without imprint. It is said that there are copies in existence
bearing Fowler & Wells imprint, but this is doubtful as such
copies are unknown to Whitman collectors. In this edition the
prose preface of the first edition is worked into four poems: By
Blue Ontario's Shore; Song of the Answerer, part two; To a
Foil'd European Revolutionaire, and Song of Prudence; the
balance being reprinted in Specimen Days and Collect, 1881.

Owing to the refusal of Fowler & Wells to stand sponsor to the
volume, only 1,000 copies were printed and the book was out of
print 1858-1860.

1860

Leaves of Grass Imprints. American and European Cr