Beschreibung:

Title: Complete Poems & Prose of Walt Whitman, 1855...1888. Authenticated & Personal Book (handled by W.W.)... Portraits from Life... Autograph Author: Whitman, Walt Place: [Camden, NJ] Publisher: Date: [1888 or 1889] Description: [4], 382, 374, 140, 2 pp. With 3 inserted portrait plates + portrait on pictorial title-page. 10¼x6¾, original half green cloth & marbled boards, paper spine label (BAL's A binding). Limited edition of 600 copies. Signed by Whitman on the title-page of Leaves of Grass. Furthermore, inscribed twice by his literary executor, Horace Traubell: on the general title, "To Courtenay Lemon, 1904, Horace Traubell"; and on the front free endpaper, "Given to Coutenay Lemon by me, by Horace Traubell, in New York, at Herron's, April 23d 1904," followed by, in another hand, "Ben Hanford, witness." Courtenay Lemon, a literary critic and socialist philosopher, is distinguished for, among other characteristics, his relationship with Djuna Barnes, with whom whom he briefly lived starting in 1916 or 1917, and who referred to him as her common-law husband. This is the definitive edition of Whitman's work issued in his lifetime, published just three years before his death. It is comprised of printings of slightly altered plates of the Philadelphia, 1882, edition of Leaves of Grass; the Glasgow, 1883 edition of Specimen Days & Collect; and the 1888 second printing of November Boughs; plus, the first printings of the 1-page "Note at Beginning" and the 2-page "Note at End." Most copies had a handwritten limitation statement on the verso of the leaf containing the "Note at Beginning," but a few copies of the A binding did not; this is one of the ones that did not. BAL 21431. Lot Amendments Condition: Recased with repairs to spine ends, spine label well rubbed with some loss, board edges showing; glue residue at bottom of front free endpaper well away from inscription, else very good. Item number: 199602