WHITMAN
^VIilTMAN
ror, ami in 1836 founded the Long Islander in
Huntington, a weekly pajwr, which he liiniself
printed for about a year ; the paper was still ex-
tant in ll»0:j. He subseiiuently tauglit school in
tiie summer and in the winter was connected as
printer and writer with the Aurora and Tattler
in New York city, and with other papers, and
was editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 18-45-
47. The following year he spent in walking
tours botli in the United States and in Canada ;
was a member of the staflf of the Crescent, New
Orleans. La., 1848-49; visited the southern and
western states with his brother. 1849-51 ; returned
to Brooklyn, N.Y., where he opened a small book
store and printing-office, and founded the Free-
iiuin, publishing it first as a weekly and after-
ward as a daily, and engaged in carpentering
and building. He abandoned the latter occu-
pation to devote himself to the producing of his
Leaves of Grass, which he himself assisted in set-
ting up and printing and which was published in
1855. Of this first edition only about a dozen
copies were issued, besides a number of presenta-
tion copies, several of which were returned to
the author with expressions of the severest vitu-
peration. His work, however, received favor-
able criticism from the North American Review
and from Ralph Waldo Emerson. A second
edition appeared in 1856, and a third in Boston,
Mass., in 1860. A wide diversity of opinion
was immediately created, and the poet became
an object of ridicule and of encomiums, both in
Euroi)e and America. The so-called " Whitman
Cult " had its origin at this time and acquired an
ever-widening coterie. Upon hearing that his
brother, Col. George W. Whitman, had been
wounded at the battle of Fredericksburg, W^alt
Whitman hastened to Virginia and reinained as
a voluntary aid and nurse in the army hospitals,
186"2-65. He was appointed clerk in the depart-
ment of the interior, W^ashington, D.C., in Feb-
ruary, 18G5. but was soon after dismissed by his
chief, the Hon. James Harlan, on account of the
latter's condemnation of Whitman's Leaves of
Grass. Tliis resulted in a pamphlet written in
defence of the poet by William Douglas O'Connor,
and published in 1866 as " The Good Gray Poet :
A Vindication." In 1865-66 appeared Walt ^^llit-
nuin's I>rumta2)s, containing the famous burial
liymn of President Lincoln. O Captain! My Cap-
tain .' and Ulien Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard
Bloomed. Mr. Wliitman was transferred to the
attorney-general's department, where he served
until 1873, and subsequently lived with his
brother's family in Camden, N..J., suffering from
paralysis, his general health being greatly im-
paired from his liosjiital service in the war. lie
was again able to engage in literary work in
1875, and contributed to the yortli American lic-
^'iea', the Century and other publications, and
after 1879 lectured in many cities on the death
of Abraham Lincoln. In 1884 he removed to a
small house on Mickle street in Camden, where
lie spent the remainder of his life. He received
a considerable income from the sale of his books,
and subscriptions from friends both in England
and America, in 1890 being the recipient of
$1000 realized by Robert G. IngersoU's oration
"Wreathe the Living Brows" delivered in
Philadelphia, Pa. Whitman is placed by his
biographer, Richard Maurice Bucke, among the
seers, whose " spiritual eyes have been opened,"
and who " have created all the great modern re-
ligions . . . and, tlirough religion and literature,
modern civilization. Not that they have con-
tributed any large numerical proportion of the
books which have been written, but that they
have produced the few books which have in-
spired the larger number of all that have been
written in modern times. . . . Of this new race,
. . . Whitman stands among the foremost mem-
bers. W^e cannot condemn him unless we con-
demn his bretliren also. It is true that they
were condemned each in his own day. It is also
true that they all triumphed at last ; and so also
undoubtedly will he." In addition to the separ-
ate American editions of Leaves of Grass already
mentioned, are those of 1876, 1882, 1892, 1894,
1897, and 1898. His other publications include :
Democratic Vistas, prose essays (1871 ; London,
1888); Passage to India (1871) ; After all, not to
Create Only (1871) ; As a Strong Bird on Pin-
ions Free, and Other Poems (18'72); Two Rivulets
(1873) ; Specimen Days and Collect (1883), con-
taining his Memoranda during the War (1875) ;
November Boughs (1887 ; 2d ed., 1888) ; Sands
at Seventy (1888) ; Complete Poems and Prose
(1888); Good Bye, My Fancy (1891); Selected
Poems (1892) ; Complete Prose Works (1892 and
1898) ; and Atitobiograj^hia {IS02). The follow-
ing were posthumously published : Calamus, let-
ters (1897) ; The Wound Dresser, letters (1898) ;
Walt Whitman at Home, by himself (1898) ;
Notes and Fragments, edited by Richard Maurice
Bucke (1899) ; and The Complete Writings of
Walt Whitman, edited by his literary executors
R. M. Bucke, T. B. Harned and H. L. Traubel
(London, 10 vols., 1902), the first three volumes
containing his " Life," and the tentli volume his
complete bibliography. See also; "Notes on
Walt Whitman as Poet and Person" (1867) and
" Study of W'alt Wliitman " (1896), both by John
Burroughs; " W^alt Whitman" by R. M. Bucke
(1883); "The New Spirit" by Ellis Havelock
(1890); "In re Walt Whitman" by his literary
executors (1893); Robert Louis Stevenson's "Fa-
miliar Studies of Men and Books " (1894) ; Thomas
Donaldson's "Walt Whitman, the Man" (1896) j
