Poetry Books
Leaves of Grass: The "Death-Bed" Edition (Modern Library Classics)
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Manufacturer: Modern Library
Author: Walt Whitman, John Ashbery
Publisher: Modern Library
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $11.86
You Save: $ 2.09 ( 15% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Modern Library
Author: Walt Whitman, John Ashbery
Publisher: Modern Library
Average Customer Rating:
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Leaves of Grass: The "Death-Bed" Edition (Modern Library Classics) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.3
EAN: 9780679783428
ISBN: 0679783423
Label: Modern Library
Manufacturer: Modern Library
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 800
Publication Date: 2000-11-28
Publisher: Modern Library
Product Release Date: 2000-11-28
Studio: Modern Library
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.3
EAN: 9780679783428
ISBN: 0679783423
Label: Modern Library
Manufacturer: Modern Library
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 800
Publication Date: 2000-11-28
Publisher: Modern Library
Product Release Date: 2000-11-28
Studio: Modern Library
Editorial Review of Leaves of Grass: The "Death-Bed" Edition (Modern Library Classics)
Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful." Ralph Waldo Emerson found it "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet produced." Published at the author's expense on July 4, 1855, Leaves of Grass inaugurated a new voice and style into American letters and gave expression to an optimistic, bombastic vision that took the nation as its subject. Unlike many other editions of Leaves of Grass, which reproduce various short, early versions, this Modern Library Paperback Classics "Death-bed" edition presents everything Whitman wrote in its final form, and includes newly commissioned notes.
Customer Reviews of Leaves of Grass: The "Death-Bed" Edition (Modern Library Classics)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The original lean, bursting on the scene, Whitman
Review: 4 1/2 stars, really, but we can't do that. This is the original 1855 version. Whitman added to the collection throughout his life, ending up with an overstuffed and very uneven "deathbed" version, which is better known. There are some good poems in it which aren't in the original, such as When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd, but there's a lot of pretty weak stuff, too. The 1855 has a small number of pretty consistently excellent poems which are highly original and loosely but definitely connected. Reading it is a very different experience from wading through the bloated, inconsistent final version - there's something Whitmanesque (i.e., at it's best) about the original collection as a unit. Malcolm Cowley's introduction is also a bit wild and wooly (written in the late 60s or early 70s), but interesting and enlightening.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Not the 1855
Review: At least as available for the Kindle, this is not the 1855 edition. It seems to be the final edition, which is of course great, but not what I intended to get based on the product description posted. Also, the foreward and afterward mentioned in the description are missing. I don't expect the moon for a low price, but I do expect to get what I pay for.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Excellent edition of Whitman's Masterwork
Review: Choosing the fullest, most complete version of Whitman's text, before the final editing of the deathbed edition, but following the additions made after the Civil War, the Norton Critical is a must have for students of poetry, or literature, and of nature. The wild, ecstatic hunger for the world, the ravishment of the senses, as Norman Mailer put it (though not about Whitman), the mysticism of the flesh, Whitman is, arguably, the most accomplished poet of American letters.
A must read for poets, students, and pagans (Whitman as spirit of the Green Man himself!).
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A looser
Review: I bought this and returned it. There must be someone out there with the right voice and reading skills to bring us Whitman's words and rhythms. Ms. Gibson's soprano sing-song doesn't make it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: What book will you get when you order this?
Review: There seems to be some confusion, both in the editorial reviews and the customer reviews, about what edition is being referred to in this listing. the first editorial review correctly discusses the first edition as shorter and "less bloated" than the deathbed edition. however, the rest of the reviews seem to discuss either edition indiscriminately.
the two are effectively different books. the cover shown is of the first edition including an illuminating essay by malcolm cowley--that's certainly the edition I prefer, and I hope thats what you would get if you ordered this.
Review Summary: The original lean, bursting on the scene, Whitman
Review: 4 1/2 stars, really, but we can't do that. This is the original 1855 version. Whitman added to the collection throughout his life, ending up with an overstuffed and very uneven "deathbed" version, which is better known. There are some good poems in it which aren't in the original, such as When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd, but there's a lot of pretty weak stuff, too. The 1855 has a small number of pretty consistently excellent poems which are highly original and loosely but definitely connected. Reading it is a very different experience from wading through the bloated, inconsistent final version - there's something Whitmanesque (i.e., at it's best) about the original collection as a unit. Malcolm Cowley's introduction is also a bit wild and wooly (written in the late 60s or early 70s), but interesting and enlightening.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Not the 1855
Review: At least as available for the Kindle, this is not the 1855 edition. It seems to be the final edition, which is of course great, but not what I intended to get based on the product description posted. Also, the foreward and afterward mentioned in the description are missing. I don't expect the moon for a low price, but I do expect to get what I pay for.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Excellent edition of Whitman's Masterwork
Review: Choosing the fullest, most complete version of Whitman's text, before the final editing of the deathbed edition, but following the additions made after the Civil War, the Norton Critical is a must have for students of poetry, or literature, and of nature. The wild, ecstatic hunger for the world, the ravishment of the senses, as Norman Mailer put it (though not about Whitman), the mysticism of the flesh, Whitman is, arguably, the most accomplished poet of American letters.
A must read for poets, students, and pagans (Whitman as spirit of the Green Man himself!).
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A looser
Review: I bought this and returned it. There must be someone out there with the right voice and reading skills to bring us Whitman's words and rhythms. Ms. Gibson's soprano sing-song doesn't make it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: What book will you get when you order this?
Review: There seems to be some confusion, both in the editorial reviews and the customer reviews, about what edition is being referred to in this listing. the first editorial review correctly discusses the first edition as shorter and "less bloated" than the deathbed edition. however, the rest of the reviews seem to discuss either edition indiscriminately.
the two are effectively different books. the cover shown is of the first edition including an illuminating essay by malcolm cowley--that's certainly the edition I prefer, and I hope thats what you would get if you ordered this.