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Lot 78
Sale 6330 - Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana
May 8, 2025
10:00AM CT
Live / Chicago
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Estimate
$300 -
400
Price Realized
$1,280
Sold prices are inclusive of Buyer’s Premium
Lot Description
[LEAF BOOK]. -- [WHITMAN, Walt (1819-1892)]. A Leaf of Grass From Shady Hill. With a Review of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Written by Charles Eliot Norton in 1855; And, with a leaf from the first printing of Leaves of Grass, published in Brooklyn in 1855. Cambridge: Kenneth Murdock at the Harvard University Press, 1928.
Tall 8vo. With an original leaf from Whitman's Leaves of Grass (279 x 191 mm), laid in. Original gilt-lettered green cloth, unopened
FIRST EDITION, WITH AN ORIGINAL LEAF FROM THE 1855 FIRST PRINTING OF WHITMAN'S LEAVES OF GRASS, beginning with the lines "The veneer and gluepot..." and ending with "I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women..." (pp.63-64).
The text of this volume was issued to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Harvard professor and author, Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), and contains his poem "A Leaf of Grass." How many of these copies were issued with an original leaf is unclear. We found only one example on the secondary market, with no copies recorded in institutions or appearing at auction. Not in Disbound and Dispersed.