The Prose Works 1892: Volume I: Specimen Days

This two-volume set proves that Whitman’s prose has a quality no less original and distinctive than his poetry. Volume I: Specimen Days , originally written and published as newspaper dispatches, is a collection of Whitman’s on-the-spot notes of his experiences as a volunteer nurse in the hospitals in and around Washington during the Civil War. It contains, too, his nature studies, jotted down at the Stafford Farm near Camden during the years of convalescence after his paralysis in 1873.