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Finding Aids for Manuscripts at Individual Repositories
Guide to the Walt Whitman Poetry Manuscripts in The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library
Original records created by New York Public Library; machine-readable finding aid created by Terry Catapano; revised and expanded by the Walt Whitman Archive and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. Encoded Archival Description completed through the assistance of the Gladys Kreible Delmas Foundation, the University of Nebraska Research Council, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
Title: Walt Whitman Collection, 1854-1892, The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
Collection Number: N/A
Creator:
Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892
Creator:
Bucke, R.M.
Creator:
Burroughs, John
Collector:
W. T. H. Howe,
Bliss Perry,
Albert A. Berg,
Owen D. Young
Repository:
New York Public Library
Abstract:
This electronic finding aid was created from a text originally generated in 1998, converted to EAD-SGML by Terry Catapano in May 2000, and obtained by the Walt Whitman Archive. The inventory for the collection was created by Diana Burnham in 2000. The collection was processed by Sarah Dickson and John Gordan, primarily in 1941.
Scope and Content:
The Berg Collection's letters and manuscripts by Walt Whitman cover the years 1854 to 1891, with a small amount of material as yet undated. Strengths of the collection include nearly 30 manuscript poems or poem fragments and Whitman's autograph revision of the "Analysis of Poems" by Dr. R. Bucke. This essay was written for Bucke's authorized biography (Walt Whitman, 1883) and Whitman's extensive revisions were incorporated before publication. The correspondence includes two longer runs, one to William O' Connor and the other to his wife, Ellen O'Connor. The O'Connors were active in a number of social causes, as well as being devoted advocates of Whitman and his writing. William O'Connor, author of The Good Gray Poet (1866), was one of Whitman's closest friends until an argument in 1873 caused a break in their friendship.
Others who figure prominently in the Berg Collection's Whitman materials include John Burroughs (1837-1921), nature writer, literary critic, and author of Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person (1867); Peter Doyle and Harry Stafford, young friends of Whitman's; and Richard Maurice Bucke (1837-1902), Whitman's authorized biographer, friend and literary executor. In addition to writing Walt Whitman (1883) and Walt Whitman, Man and Poet (1898), Bucke co-edited with Horace Traubel and Thomas Harned The Complete Writings (1902).
Subjects: Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892;
Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892--Manuscripts;
Poets, American--19th century;
Series Description and Item Lists
Series: 1
Title: Manuscripts
Date: 1854-1891, undated
Series Description: This series includes Whitman poetry manuscripts, arranged alphabetically.
Item: 1
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00111
Title:
"Appendage"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf,
handwritten
View Images: 1
A list of trial titles, probably for annexes or supplements to Leaves of Grass.
Item: 2
Box: Manuscript box.
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00003
Title: "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free"
Date: around 1872
Physical Description: 14 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28
A copy of "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free" with directions to the printer, as returned to Whitman from the printing office. "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free" was first published in the New York Herald on 26 June 1872. This poem was later published with seven other poems in a pamphlet, As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free (1872). It was later included as a supplement bound with Two Rivulets (1876). Later, Whitman changed the title to "Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood" , added a new opening stanza, and additional revisions, and incorporated the poem into Leaves of Grass (1881-82). This manuscript was presented by the author to Richard J. Hinton, and in turn presented by the latter to J. H. Johnston.
Item: 3
Box: Oversized (+).
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00004
Title: "Broadway, 1861." | "[I too am drawn]" | "[I have lived]"
Date: around 1861
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Lightly revised handwritten copy of a poem titled "Broadway, 1861," which is unrelated to the poem "Broadway" that Whitman published in the New York Herald in 1888. Harold W. Blodgett and Sculley Bradley write that, like the two poems composed on the reverse of the same leaf, "I Too Am Drawn . . ." and "I Have Lived . . . ," "this poem is closely related to the opening poem of Drum-Taps, "First O Songs for a Prelude" in its theme of the arousing of the energies of the great city—and of the nation—to the war."
Item: 4
Box: Cased.
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00005
Title: "A Child's Reminiscence"
Date: about 1859
Physical Description: 19 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37
Printer's copy of the poem "A Child's Reminiscence," which appeared in the New-York Saturday Press on 24 December 1859. This poem later appeared as "A Word Out of the Sea" in Leaves of Grass (1860); as "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" in "Sea-Shore Memories," Passage to India (1871); and finally in "Sea Drift," Leaves of Grass (1881-82).
Item: 5
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00040
Title: "content to the ground"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
A list of words beginning with "the blacksmith's shop" and "the brewery" that could be related to a poem. The phrase "content to the ground" is probably tied to some other text from another scrap, since it is visually distinct from the other words on this leaf.
Item: 6
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00006
Title: "The Dead Emperor"
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Printer's copy of the poem "The Dead Emperor," which was first published in the New York Herald on 10 March 1888 and later reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888). The poem mourns the death of Emperor William I of Germany on 9 March 1888, and the Herald of 10 March contained details of his final hours as well as Whitman's poem.
Item: 7
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00007
Title: "A Death-Sonnet for Custer"
Date: about 1876
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Printer's copy of the poem "A Death-Sonnet for Custer" with instructions to preserve the manuscipt in its current form for Bayard Taylor. "A Death-Sonnet for Custer" first appeared in the New York Daily Tribune on 10 July 1876. It was then reprinted as "From Far Dakotas Cañon" in Leaves of Grass (1881-82).
Item: 8
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00112
Title: "Enter into the thoughts"
Date: before 1855
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Once part of a larger scrap that began with "For example, whisper." Edward F. Grier credits R. M. Bucke with pointing out the "similarity of the text to "Song of Myself" (1855), sec. 43, ll. 1096-1110. The date is undoubtedly before 1855."
Item: 9
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00013
Title: "Go, said his Soul to a Poet."
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
A rough draft, heavily revised, of a poem titled "Go, said his Soul to a Poet," which was first published as "Come, said my Soul" in 1874 and later used as the title-page epigraph for Leaves of Grass.
Item: 10
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00014
Title: "[growing]" | "Poems"
Date: about 1859
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Five lines of the poem "I Saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing." This poem is part of the "Calamus" cluster, which Whitman began assembling in the summer of 1859. The reverse features a note by the poet to himself, describing the poems as "A Cluster of Poems, Sonnets expressing the thoughts, pictures, aspirations &c Fit to be perused during the days of the approach of Death."
Item: 11
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00095
Title: "Have you known that"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
This scrap used to be part of a larger leaf, which begins with the line "Who wills with his own brain." The entire composition constitutes an incomplete poem, of which other parts may have been lost or never written.
Item: 12
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00125
Title: "I admire a beautiful woman" | "just as much directly"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
About three lines of poetry, with revisions, of unknown relation to Whitman's published work. On the verso is a prose fragment addressing the question of how to establish and raise the "character of cities."
Item: 13
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00088
Title: "I heat the hot cores"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Two lines of poetry, with some revisions, that make reference to the core of the Earth and to the sun.
Item: 14
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00022
Title: "I last winter observed the snow"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Two untitled lines of poetry. Blodgett and Bradley suggest that the substitution of "north west wind" for "Wild Drake" indicates a connection to line 237 of "Song of Myself."
Item: 15
Box: Manuscript box.
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00059
Title: "Interpolation Sounds"
Date: about 1891
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Fair copy draft of the poem "Interpolation Sounds" . This poem first appeared without a title in the New York Herald four days after Whitman's short prose tribute to General Philip K. Sheridan, a Union general during the Civil War. It was reprinted in "Good-Bye My Fancy" in 1891, with the additional note: "General Sheridan was buried at the Cathedral, Washington, D.C. August, 1888, with all the pomp, music and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic service."
Item: 16
Box: Oversized (+).
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00053
Title: "[? A laurel wreath]"
Date: about 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Heavily revised draft of the poem "To Those Who've Fail'd." The poem was published in the New York Herald on 27 January 1888 and later reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888).
Item: 17
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00038
Title: "Leaves Supervenio"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Two trial titles, "Leaves Supervenio" and "Leaves Supervened." As Edward F. Grier writes, these titles may "refer to WW's plans about 1870 to compose a new volume of poetry."
Item: 18
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00106
Title: "Like Earth O River" | "Sailing Down the Mississippi"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Eight lines, in neat handwriting, comparing a river--probably the Mississippi, which is referenced in the seven lines written on the verso--to "Earth" and "Time." The relation of these lines to Whitman's published work is unclear.
Item: 19
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00098
Title: "Lo, space, eternal"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Three lines of poetry, with revisions. The connection to Whitman's published poetry is unclear.
Item: 20
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00122
Title: "Loveblows"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
A list of words starting with "Love-" (e.g. "Loveroot"), many of them plant metaphors that could be read as refering to parts of the body, in particular to the genitals. As Edward F. Grier writes, R. M. Bucke sees a connection to "Song of Myself" (1855), sec. 2, l. 22. The date is before or early in 1855.
Item: 21
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00043
Title: "[or, Halcyon Days]" | "Fancies at Navesink"
Date: around 1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Draft for a title page beginning, "or Halycon days," with a note at the head "for title page to supplement of L of G not Nove. Boughs." The verso appears to have been a previous title page draft for "Fancies at Navesink." "Halcyon Days" first appeared in the New York Herald on 29 January 1888, and was reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy Annex" to Leaves of Grass (1888).
Item: 22
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00074
Title: "The Pallid Wreath"
Date: 1891
Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Draft of the poem "The Pallid Wreath," which was published in the Critic 18 (10 January 1891) and reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891). The original envelope containing the draft and comments to the editor of the Critic is included.
Item: 23
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00052
Title: "pass existence" | "What would it bring you"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
One unidentified line of poetry, heavily revised. The verso features two lines with revisions as well. Blodgett and Bradley say the following about the verso: "Obviously, they are a complete 'Thought,' such as those of Leaves of Grass 1860, and were probably composed at the same time. The sentiment is illustrative of Walt Whitman's untiring interest in private as well as public character."
Item: 24
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00077
Title: "Passage to India"
Date: before 1871
Physical Description: 13 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26
Notes and drafted lines for "Passage to India," a poem first published in 1871. The first page features the watermark of "Platner & Porter, Congress" in the upper right-hand corner.
Item: 25
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00120
Title: "Poem"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
A newspaper clipping pasted onto a piece of paper, with Whitman's handwritten notes in the margins. The title "Poem" and the first note indicate that he is deriving an idea for a new poem from the newspaper excerpt, which deals with the "ennobling" effect of struggles and hardships one may face in life.
Item: 26
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00039
Title: "Poem of the Ancient"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Notes toward a poem on the "earth," "heavens," and "the Ancient." On the verso are some numbers and calculations.
Item: 27
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00121
Title: "Points in Proem"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Notes on some material to incorporate into the "Proem" Whitman drafted in another manuscipt.
Item: 28
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00118
Title: "Proem"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Draft of a line justifying the poet's inclusion of "amativeness" as a topic in his poems. The title "Proem" suggests that this may be the draft of a passage for a prefatory poem.
Item: 29
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00119
Title: "Reflections"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
A heavily revised draft of about five lines, with the suggested titles of "Reflections" and "Shadows."
Item: 30
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00097
Title: "Remember how many pass"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Two lines, with revisions, toward a composition that was never published. This scrap used to be part of the same manuscript as the one titled "Have you known that" in this collection.
Item: 31
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00117
Title: "A remembrance"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
A heavily revised line toward what seems to have been intended as a poem titled "A remembrance," honoring the air we breathe and also "a breed of full-sized young men and women."
Item: 32
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00033
Title: "Sea Winrows"
Date: 1860-1881
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
A list of words probably related to the poem "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life," originally published as "Bardic Symbols" in the Atlantic Monthly 5 (April 1860). The final version of the poem was published in Leaves of Grass (1881-82). The verso features the words "Sands and Drifts."
Item: 33
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00089
Title: "shall venerate hours and days" | "Why should I subscribe"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
About four lines of poetry, one of which contains the colloquial word "limpsey" (weak), of which Whitman was fond. The three lines on the verso bear some resemblance in theme to the fifth poem in "Chants Democratic," a cluster of poems first published in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.
Item: 34
Box: Cased.
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00075
Title: "The Sobbing of the Bells"
Date: 1881
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Draft fragment of the poem "The Sobbing of the Bells," unsigned and dated midnight, Sept. 19-20, 1881. There are crossed out lines on the recto and a note at the top to Mr. Clarke regarding the setup and proof. The poem relates to the death of President James Garfield and was first published in the Boston Daily Globe on September 27, 1881.
Item: 35
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00076
Title: "Song of the Universal"
Date:
Physical Description: 15 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26
The poem first appeared as "The Song of the Universal" in the New York Evening Post on 17 June 1874. This poem was printed on the same day in the New York Daily Graphic, in the New York World on 19 June 1874, in the Camden New Republic on 20 June 1874, and in Two Rivulets (1876).
Item: 36
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00115
Title: "A string of poems"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
"A string of Poems (short, etc.), embodying the amative love of woman--the same as Live Oak Leaves do the passion of friendship for man." Since, as Bowers (lxxiii-lxxiv) points out, Whitman dropped the title "Live Oak Leaves" in late spring, 1859, and adopted calamus as his symbol of manly love, the date must be earlier.
Item: 37
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00037
Title: "Tar, turpentine, shingles"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Notes, probably toward a poem, mentioning building materials from North Carolina, slaves driving carts, a lumber boat, and a pack of dogs ready for a slave hunt.
Item: 38
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00044
Title: "[Two little buds]"
Date: unknown
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
A note consisting of four lines, possibly written toward a poem, that present the metaphor of "two little human buds" prematurely taken from the earth to bloom in "God's immortal garden." The relationship between this draft and Whitman's published poetry is unknown.
Item: 39
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00116
Title: "undulating"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
A collection of notes on what seem to be three different topics: acts of "merging" suggestive of sexual union; stars moving in their orbits; shame felt by African Americans for their appearance.
Item: 40
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00047
Title: "Warble for Lilac-Time"
Date: 1870-1881
Physical Description: 4 leaves, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
Fair copy draft of the poem "Warble for Lilac-Time," first published in the Galaxy 9 (May 1870). Whitman revised the poem for reprinting in Passage to India (1871), in the New York Daily Graphic (12 May 1873), in the group "Passage to India" of Leaves of Grass (1872) and Two Rivulets (1876), and in its present form in Leaves of Grass (1881-82).
Item: 41
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00025
Title: "We Are [As the turbulence]"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1
Two lines of poetry with unknown relation to Whitman's published work.
Item: 42
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00049
Title: "Yonnondio"
Date: 1887-1888
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Heavily revised draft of the poem "Yonnondio," which first appeared in the Critic 11 (26 November 1887). It was reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888).
Item: 43
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00050
Title: "You lingering sparse leaves of me."
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Lightly revised draft of the poem "You lingering sparse leaves of me," first published in Lippincott's Magazine 40 (November 1887) with three other poems, under the title "November Boughs." It was then reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888).
Item: 44
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00051
Title: "You tokens diminute and lorn"
Date: about 1887
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Three lines of a draft of "You lingering sparse leaves of me," first published in Lippincott's Magazine 40 (November 1887) with three other poems, under the title "November Boughs." It was then reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888).
Item: 45
Box:
Folder:
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00045
Title: "[A youth beloved by all]"
Date:
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Two lines written on the top of a piece of letter-head stationery of the Attorney General's Office.
Restrictions: Access to the collection is restricted to qualified scholars and researchers through the Office of Special Collections, Room 316, Humanites and Social Sciences Library, New York Public Library. Requests for reproduction and/or permission to quote must be made in writing to the Curator and be accompanied by Estate permission.
Alternative Format: Digital images of some items are available in the "Manuscripts" section of the Archive.
Preferred Citation: To identify this finding aid as a source, see the Archive's "Conditions of Use" page.
Repository Contact Information:
New York Public Library
Humanities and Social Sciences Library
Room 320
5th Avenue and 42nd Street
New York, NY 10018-2788