Contained herein is a vast collection of Whitman’s writing, including vignettes from his childhood, a series of powerful accounts of his work in hospitals during the Civil war, and a large amount of nature writing. Composed in 1881 primarily from sketches, notes, and essays written at various stages of the poet's life from the Civil War onwards, Specimen Days is the closest thing Whitman ever published to a traditional autobiography. A wonderful insight into the mind of America’s most famous poet, this rare classic will appeal to any collector of Whitman’s work and is well deserving of its place atop any bookshelf. Walter "Walt" Whitman was a seminal American poet and journalist. Often hailed as the father of free verse, Whitman is among the most influential poets of the American canon, most famous for his controversial life-long work, Leaves of Grass. This rare book is republished here with a new introductory biography of the author.

'I obey my happy hour's command, which seems curiously imperative. May-be, if I don't do anything else, I shall send out the most wayward, spontaneous, fragmentary book ever printed.' One of the best kept secrets of modern autobiographical literature, Whitman's autobiography moves in brisk, episodic fashion to chronicle the life of one of the world's best loved and most influential poets. Experimental in form, lyrical in expression, and rich in experiential content, Specimen Days still awaits a much wider readership than it has hitherto commanded. Whitman gives us his life as lived in relation to the shifting urban and rural ecologies of a young nation -a nation that had freshly emerged from catastrophic civil war and that was assuming the vanguard of artistic, technological, economic, political, and philosophical modernity. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Comprising more than 30 substantial essays written by leadingscholars, this companion constitutes an exceptionally broad-rangingand in-depth guide to one of America’s greatest poets. Makes the best and most up-to-date thinking on Whitmanavailable to students Designed to make readers more aware of the social and culturalcontexts of Whitman’s work, and of the experimental nature ofhis writing Includes contributions devoted to specific poetry and proseworks, a compact biography of the poet, and a bibliography

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General Series Editors: Gay Wilson Allen and Sculley Bradley Originally published between 1961 and 1984, and now available in paperback for the first time, the critically acclaimed Collected Writings of Walt Whitman captures every facet of one of America's most important poets. In discussing letter-writing, Whitman made his own views clear. Simplicity and naturalness were his guidelines. “I like my letters to be personal—very personal—and then stop.” The six volumes in The Correspondence comprise nearly 3,000 letters written over a half century, revealing Whitman the person as no other documents can. Volume III covers the years in which Whitman radiated a personal and artistic magnetism, despite the paralysis that struck him in 1873. This period was full of important events, including the attempted censoring of Leaves of Grass, Whitman's renewed friendship with William D. O'Connor, and the arrival in America of Whitman's unrequited lover, Anne Gilchrist. During this period, Whitman also met Harry Stafford, the eighteen-year-old son of a New Jersey farming family. Despite his international fame, Whitman preferred to spend much of his time with the Staffords, particularly Harry, with whom he had a close but uncertain bond.

General Series Editors: Gay Wilson Allen and Sculley Bradley Originally published between 1961 and 1984, and now available in paperback for the first time, the critically acclaimed Collected Writings of Walt Whitman captures every facet of one of America’s most important poets. Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts gathers Whitman’s autobiographical notes, his views on contemporary politics, and the writings he made as he educated himself in ancient history, religion and mythology, health (including phrenology), and word-study. Included is material on his Civil War experiences, his love of Abraham Lincoln, his descriptions of various trips to the West and South and of the cities in which he resided, his generally pessimistic view of America’s prospects in the Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, and his reminiscences during his final years and his preoccupation with the increasing ailments that came with old age. Many of these notes served as sources for his poetry—first drafts of some of the poems are included as they appear in the notes—and as the basis for his lectures.

Fakery, authenticity, and identity in American literature and culture at the turn of the 20th century Focusing on texts written between 1880 and 1930, Mary McAleer Balkun explores the concept of the “counterfeit,” both in terms of material goods and invented identities, and the ways that the acquisition of objects came to define individuals in American culture and literature. Counterfeiting is, in one sense, about the creation of something that appears authentic—an invented self, a museum display, a forged work of art. But the counterfeit can also be a means by which the authentic is measured, thereby creating our conception of the true or real. When counterfeiting is applied to individual identities, it fosters fluidity in social boundaries and the games of social climbing and passing that have come to be representative of American culture: the Horatio Alger story, the con man or huckster, the social climber, the ethnically ambiguous. Balkun provides new readings of traditional texts such as The Great Gatsby, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The House of Mirth, as well as readings of less-studied texts, such as Walt Whitman’s Specimen Days and Nella Larsen’s Passing. In each of these texts, Balkun locates the presence of manufactured identities and counterfeit figures, demonstrating that where authenticity and consumerism intersect, the self becomes but another commodity to be promoted, sold, and eventually consumed.

Derek Mahon (1941–2020) is widely recognized as one of the most important Irish poets of his generation. This collection of new critical essays offers an important retrospective assessment of the nature of his poetic achievement. Bringing together many leading scholars of modern and contemporary Irish poetry, including a notable number of accomplished poet-critics, its contributors range widely across Mahon’s body of work. Their essays offer fresh considerations of the biographical, geographical and literary contexts that shaped his poetic voice. This includes paying attention not only to more familiar influences but also to previously little considered interlocutors. The stylistic and formal achievement of his voice is re-evaluated in ways that range from attentive close readings to considerations of his controversial practice of self-revision, and his engagements with music and experiments in translation. The politics of a poet often misleadingly considered apolitical are also reframed to take in the engagements of his early work through to the ecocritical commitment of his later poetry. Indeed, a notable aspect of this book is the consideration it gives to all the phases of Mahon’s career. As a whole, the collection opens up many new ways of reading and understanding Mahon’s important body of work.

Highlights the latest currents in Whitman scholarship and demonstrates how Whitman's work transforms discussions in literary studies.

Novel Ideas provides a substantial introduction to the elements of fiction followed by in-depth interviews with successful novelists who speak with candor and insight into the complex process by which a novel is made. This edition includes new and updated interviews as well as writing exercises to enhance its use in the writing classroom. Dorothy Allison recalls "deliciously self-indulgent" days of writing in her bathrobe, wrapped in misery and exultation; Peter Cameron explains how he made the move from short fiction to the novel with the aid of a music composer's notebook to track the movement of his characters. Writers as different as Ha Jin, Jill McCorkle, Richard Ford, and Michael Chabon describe their unique approaches to their work while consistently affirming the necessity of committing to the hard effort of it while also remaining open to surprise. Aspiring novelists will find hands-on strategies for beginning, working through, and revising a novel; accomplished novelists will discover new ways to solve the problems they face in process; and serious readers of contemporary fiction will enjoy a glimpse into the way novels are made. Includes interviews with:Dorothy AllisonLarry BrownPeter CameronMichael ChabonMichael CunninghamRobb Forman DewRichard FordHa JinPatricia HenleyCharles JohnsonWally LambValerie MartinJill McCorkleSena Jeter NaslundLewis NordanSheri ReynoldsS. J. RozanJane SmileyLee SmithTheodore Weesner