More than 40 years after the inaugural volume’s original publication, Ted Genoways brings scholars the latest volume in
Walt Whitman: The Correspondence . Among the more than 150 letters collected in this volume are numerous correspondence concerning Whitman’s Civil War years, including a letter sending John Hay, the personal secretary to Abraham Lincoln, a manuscript copy of
O Captain, My Captain!
Additional letters address various aspects of the production of
Leaves of Grass , the most notable being an extensive correspondence surrounding the
Deathbed Edition , gathered by Whitman’s friend Horace Traubel, and reproduced here for the first time. Most significantly, this volume incorporates Whitman’s early letters to Abraham Paul Leech, first published by Arthur Golden in
American Literature
in 1986. The revelations contained in these letters must be considered among the most important discoveries about Whitman’s life made during the last half of the 20th century.