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The Pauline and Ozzy Fletcher Collection of Whitmaniana
Lot 133

"THE EARNEST TRIAL AND EXPLORATION SHALL AT LEAST BE MINE..."
WHITMAN, WALT. 1819-1892
As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free and Other Poems. Washington, D.C.: [Printed for Whitman by S.W. Green, New York], 1872.

21 November 2023, 10:00 EST
New York

US$400 - US$600

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"THE EARNEST TRIAL AND EXPLORATION SHALL AT LEAST BE MINE..."

WHITMAN, WALT. 1819-1892 As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free and Other Poems. Washington, D.C.: [Printed for Whitman by S.W. Green, New York], 1872.
8vo (202 x 106 mm). Publisher's green cloth, gilt. Erasure staining to title page, top 1/3 of free endpaper and first blank torn away, bookplate removed from rear pastedown.
Provenance: William A. Eddy, New York City (ink inscription to title-page, dated February 28, 1881); Pauline and Ozzy Fletcher (bookplate to paste-down); sold to our consignor.

FIRST EDITION of this collection of seven new poems, and the significant "Preface" in which he envisions this volume as the first installment of a new collection of an "aggregated, inseparable, unprecedented, vast, composite, electric, Democratic Nationality." The poems here would eventually be swept into the epic project of Leaves of Grass but here they remained something new for Whitman, who says here of the eternal experiment of his poems, "the earnest trial and exploration shall at least be mine, and other success failing, shall be success enough." BAL 21408; Myerson A7.1.a.

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