New York [San Francisco]: Random House (Grabhorn Press), 1930. First thus. Illustrated by Valenti Angelo. Printed by the Grabhorn Press (of San Francisco) in an edition of 400 copies, this number 133. A Very Good+ copy with some wear to the Oak boards at the corners, and some superficial rubbing to the morocco spine at the extremities. Internal contents generally clean and in excellent condition with just the odd page with a bit of foxing. With an original, signed letter from Bennett A. Cerf of Random House describing the binding for the original owner (and directing his inquiry about the paperstock to Ed Grabhorn).

Perhaps the most important collection of poetry in American Literature. Although Leaves of Grass was first greeted with derision and even shock – Boston’s district attorney attempted to have some of the poems suppressed as obscene and Whitman was fired from his job – it eventually claimed its rightful place in the American canon. Whitman wrote the collection after he was inspired by Emerson and the Transcendentalist movement, and the poems in Leaves of Grass are noted for their sensualist focus on nature and the human form. They include some of Whitman’s most famous works, including Song of Myself and I Sing of the Body Electric. Despite the collection’s fame and success, Whitman re-wrote and edited the collection many times, with the final edition containing over 400 poems. Whitman himself helped pay for the printing of the first edition, the run of which contained only 800 copies, most of which were unbound. Very Good + (Item #5779)