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Drum-Taps
Walt Whitman, 1865-1866
WHITMAN, Walt (1819-1892). Drum-Taps. New York: [printed by Peter Flecker for Walt Whitman,] 1865. [Bound with:] Sequel to Drum-Taps (Since the Preceding came from the Press.) Washington: [printed by Gibson Brothers,] 1865-66 [but October 1865].
Very fine copy of the first edition. Drum-Taps was printed just before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865. Although Whitman had never met the President, he profoundly admired both the man and his command of language. Over the summer, Whitman wrote three poems on Lincoln's death which were then printed in the sequel. These include one of his best-loved poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and the long elegy, "When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd." The latter was called by Harold Bloom the greatest American poem; it "was and is not only the sublime of his personal achievement but to this day is unsurpassed by anything else written in this hemisphere, in any language ... This ultimate elegy has become the New World’s permanent prophecy of our fate as the Evening Land of Western literary culture. ‘Lilacs’ is Whitman’s sunset glory—'More life,’ the Hebrew blessing, is hardly its burden but it is a fit motto for the epic of himself, Whitman’s ‘dazzling and tremendous’ sunrise and primary poem" (Anatomy of Influence). BAL 21398 (issue 2, i.e. with the Sequel).
Octavo. Original plum-brown cloth, gilt title roundel on front cover, in blind on the back (slightest rubbing to corners and joints); modern quarter morocco slipcase. Provenance: Christie's New York, 19 June 2014, lot 293.