Camden, New Jersey: [Walt Whitman], 1876. Author's Edition. With both volumes signed by Whitman, as issued, and additionally inscribed by Whitman in Two Rivulets to the English cleric and writer Hugh Reginald Haweis (1838 – 1901): "H.R. Haweis from the Author." With a postcard addressed to Whitman from his disciple, the English writer Edward Carpenter (1844 – 1929): "Please also send two vols (Leaves and Two Rivulets) to Revd H. R. Haweis, 16 Welbeek Street, Cavendish Square, London, W. He orders them through me. The remaining three vols keep till I write again." Postmarked at Brighton on September 20, 1877 and at New York on October 3. This is the "Author's Edition," self-published by Whitman, comprising the fifth edition, third printing, second issue of Leaves of Grass and the first printing, first issue of Two Rivulets. Each book is signed by Whitman: Leaves on the title-page and Two Rivulets on the frontisportrait. Only between 750 and 800 copies of the set were produced (Walt Whitman Archive).

A Very Good copy. Two volumes, octavo. Complete, with the two portraits of Whitman in Leaves and the photographic frontisportrait in Two Rivulets. Both volumes bound in the original half cream calf over marbled paper boards. Rebacked to style with original labels laid down. Some discoloration to leather. Retaining the original yellow endpapers. Leaves of Grass with the stamp of Brentano's to upper free endpaper and the early pencil ownership signature of E.H. Winslow to upper free endpaper. Two Rivulets with a smudge to the edge of the frontisportrait, some offsetting to title-page and gutter, and tape repair to edge of preliminary blank. The postcard (120 x 86 mm) with one corner chipped away, but present. An appealing set, with an additional inscription and a connection to Whitman's social circle.

A scarce and prized pair of Whitman classics, self-published and sold by him in an edition of no more than 800 copies. The poet had suffered a stroke in 1873 and was, by 1876, living with relatives. He published this set to generate an income and secure his independence. In May of 1876, he wrote to Robert Buchanan, the English critic who championed his work, "I shall [...] continue to be my own publisher & bookseller [...] the set $10."

Leaves of Grass is, of course, Whitman's masterpiece, boldly opening with "Song of Myself," one of the most celebrated poems in the American canon. Two Rivulets, the more obscure of the two works, reflects on the American centennial: Whitman sought "an original way to celebrate America's second century in this 1876 centennial year. He does so by envisioning an 'ideal' America of limitless possibilities without relinquishing the 'real' America of national, political, and economic embroilments" (Walt Whitman Archive). Although less popular than Leaves of Grass, Two Rivulets was no less visionary in its composition and structure: the Walt Whitman Archive calls the work a "radical experiment" that interweaves prose, poetry, photography, and creative printing techniques; Whitman himself wrote that the work compiles "Experiments, under the urge of powerful, quite irresistible, perhaps wilful influences, (even escapades)" that "have been recited, as it were, by my Soul" (Two Rivulets, p. 11).

This copy is particularly notable for its connection to Whitman's broader social and literary circle by way of the English writer Edward Carpenter, who first wrote to the author in 1874 and quickly became one of his many "disciples." "Like many other young disillusioned Englishmen, [Carpenter] deemed Whitman a prophetic spokesman of an ideal state cemented in the bonds of brotherhood. Carpenter...became an advocate for same-sex love and a contributing early founder of Britain's Labour Party" (Whitman Archive). The postcard demonstrates Carpenter's efforts to distribute Whitman's work in England; given the author's financial troubles, his friends' efforts to generate additional sales would probably have been much appreciated. Very Good (Item #8322)