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The aim of the editor of this volume has been to make a representative selection from the prose and poetical writings of Walt Whitman. He has tried to select, not what from a conventional point of view would be called "the best" of Whitman, but rather what is most characteristic in his writings.

Among the prose compositions will be found the preface to the first edition of Leaves of Grass, a remarkable essay, which, in its original form, has hitherto been inaccessible to the great majority of Whitman readers, and which is now printed verbatim et literatim from the text of the 1855 edition. In the choice of poems the effort has been made to preserve, in the character and arrangement of the pieces, the unitary conceptions which determined the architectonics of the last edition of Leaves of Grass. One or two letters have been added from the series written to Peter Doyle and to Whitman's mother during war-time. The biographical chapter was made up from many sources; but it relies for its authority chiefly upon the writings of Whitman's biographer and great friend, Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke. A series of notes and critical studies, at first announced for this volume, has been reserved for subsequent use; but a selected bibliography has been included for the convenience of students.

The University of Chicago,

March, 1898.

O. L. T.

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