Triggs, Oscar Lovell, ed. Introduction and selected bibliography to Selections from the Prose and Poetry of Walt Whitman. 1898. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., pp. xiii-xliii, 251-57 (bibliography revised: 1902). [Whitman was a seer, to be defined not by external experience but by spiritual experience, as revealed through his work. Leaves came to him through some inspiration and is autobiographical in a larger sense. His life is traced from Bucke (1883), emphasizing the qualities gained during his poetic apprenticeship and what contributed to making him poet of the soul. He connects America's two great eras--that of independence and that of love and union. The contributions of past literature and thought to his poetry are discussed, with note of his favorite works. The importance of sympathy to his character and work is explained.]