Synopses & Reviews
From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcoversfeaturing cover art by Jessica Hische
It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany and Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin's own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility. With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series debuted with an 'A' for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a 'B' for Charlotte Brönte's Jane Eyre, and a 'C' for Willa Cather's My Ántonia. It continues with more perennial classics, perfect to give as elegant gifts or to showcase on your own shelves.
W is for Whitman. When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, it redefined the rules of poetry while describing the soul of the American character. Throughout his life, Whitman continuously revised, expanded, and republished Leaves of Grass, but the 1855 original marked Whitmans fresh and bold arrival, greeted by Ralph Waldo Emerson as the beginning of a great career.” This volume specially compiled for Penguin Drop Caps will also include a range of additional popular poems including selections from "Calamus," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," and "Drum-Taps," as well as Whitmans 1855, 1856 and 1976 prefaces and Democratic Vistas.”
Review
Winner of the 2012 Fifty Books/Fifty Covers show, organized by Design Observer in association with AIGA and Designers and Books
Winner of the 2014 Type Directors Club Communication Design Award
Praise for Leaves of Grass:
"I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of Leaves of Grass. I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. . . . I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illustion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Praise for Penguin Drop Caps:
"[Penguin Drop Caps] convey a sense of nostalgia for the tactility and aesthetic power of a physical book and for a centuries-old tradition of beautiful lettering."
—Fast Company
“Vibrant, minimalist new typographic covers…. Bonus points for the heartening gender balance of the initial selections.”
—Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
"The Penguin Drop Caps series is a great example of the power of design. Why buy these particular classics when there are less expensive, even free editions of Great Expectations? Because theyre beautiful objects. Paul Buckley and Jessica Hisches fresh approach to the literary classics reduces the design down to typography and color. Each cover is foil-stamped with a cleverly illustrated letterform that reveals an element of the story. Jane Austens A (Pride and Prejudice) is formed by opulent peacock feathers and Charlotte Brontes B (Jane Eyre) is surrounded by flames. The complete set forms a rainbow spectrum prettier than anything else on your bookshelf."
—Rex Bonomelli, The New York Times
"Drool-inducing."
—Flavorwire
"Classic reads in stunning covers—your book club will be dying."
—Redbook
Review
“Whitman, the great poet, has meant so much to me. Whitman the one man breaking a way ahead. Whitman the one pioneer . . . Ahead of Whitman, nothing. Ahead of all poets, pioneering into the wilderness of unopened life, Whitman. Beyond him, none.” —D. H. Lawrence
Synopsis
A deluxe edition of Whitman's crowning achievement, with an introductory essay by Harold Bloom
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, it redefined the rules of poetry while describing the soul of the American character. Throughout his great career, Whitman continuously revised, expanded, and republished Leaves of Grass, but as Harold Bloom reminds us, the book that matters most is the 1855 original. In celebration of the poems 150th anniversary, Penguin Classics proudly presents the 1855 text in its original and complete form, with a specially commissioned introductory essay by Harold Bloom.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Synopsis
When Walt Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass in 1855 it was a slim volume of twelve poems and he was a journalist and poet from Long Island, little-known but full of ambition and poetic fire. To give a new voice to the new nation shaken by civil war, he spent his entire life revising and adding to the work, but his initial act of bravado in answering Ralph Waldo Emerson's call for a national poet has made Whitman the quintessential American writer. This rich cross-section of his work includes poems from throughout Whitman's lifetime as published on his deathbed edition of 1891, short stories, his prefaces to the many editions of Leaves of Grass, and a variety of prose selections, including Democratic Vistas, Specimen Days, and Slang in America.
Synopsis
I am large, I contain multitudes”
When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, it redefined the rules of poetry while describing the soul of the American character. Throughout his great career, Whitman continuously revised, expanded, and republished Leaves of Grass, but many critics believe that the book that matters most is the 1855 original. Penguin Classics proudly presents that text in its original and complete form, with an introductory essay by the writer and poet Malcolm Cowley.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
About the Author
Walt Whitman (18191892) was born on Long Island and educated in Brooklyn, NY. He served as a printers devil, journeyman compositor, and itinerant schoolteacher, edited the Long Islander, and in 1846 became editor of The Brooklyn Eagle, a position from which he was discharged for political reasons. After a period in New Orleans, considered seminal in shaping his philosophy, he returned to Brooklyn. Although he had earlier affected the mien of a dandy, he now dressed as a rough,” and became prominent among the bohemian element of New York. In 1855 he published the first of many editions of
Leaves of Grass. The Civil War found him working as an unofficial nurse to Northern and Southern soldiers in army hospitals in Washington D.C. After the war he became a clerk in the Indian Bureau of the Department of the Interior, from which he was shortly dismissed by the Secretary on the grounds that LEAVES OF GRASS was an immoral book. During his last nineteen years he lived in Camden, New Jersey. Among his works are
Drum-Taps (1865),
Democratic Vistas and
Passage to India (1871), and
Specimen Days (1882).
Jessica Hische is a letterer, illustrator, typographer, and web designer. She currently serves on the Type Directors Club board of directors, has been named a Forbes Magazine "30 under 30" in art and design as well as an ADC Young Gun and one of Print Magazines "New Visual Artists". She has designed for Wes Anderson, McSweeney's, Tiffany and Co, Penguin Books and many others. She resides primarily in San Francisco, occasionally in Brooklyn.
Table of Contents
The Portable Walt Whitman
Introduction Poems From Leaves Of Grass
(dates indicate first book publication)
1855:
Song of Myself
A Song for Occupations
To Think of Time
The Sleepers
I Sing the Body Electric
Faces
There Was a Child Went Forth
Who Learns My Lesson Complete?
1856:
Unfolded Out of the Folds
Song of the Broad-Axe
To You
This Compost
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Song of the Open Road
A Woman Waits for Me
To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire
Spontaneous Me
A Song of the Rolling Earth
1860:
Starting from Paumanok
From Pent-up Aching Rivers
Me Imperturbe
I Hear America Singing
As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life
You Felons on Trial in Courts
The World below the Brine
I Sit and Look Out
All Is Truth
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
Native Moments
Once I Pass'd through a Populous City
Once I Pass'd through a Populous City (draft version)
Facing West from California's Shores
As Adam Early in the Morning
Live Oak, with Moss
I. (Not Heat Flames up and Consumes)
II. (I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing)
III. (When I Heard at the Close of the Day)
IV. (This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful)
V. (Calamus 8: "Long I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me")
VI. (What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?)
VII. (Recorders Ages Hence!)
VIII. (Calamus 9: "Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted")
IX. (I Dreamed in a Dream)
X. (O You Whom I Often and Silently Come)
XI. (Earth! My Likeness)
XXI. (To a Western Boy)
Calamus:
In Paths Untrodden
Scented Herbage of My Breast
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
For You O Democracy
These I Singing in Spring
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances
The Base of All Metaphysics (added 1871)
Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?
Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone
Of Him I Love Day and Night
City of Orgies
To a Stranger
I Hear It Was Charged Against Me
We Two Boys Together Clinging
Here The Frailest Leaves of Me
A Glimpse
Sometimes with One I Love
Among the Multitude
That Shadow My Likeness
Full of Life Now
To Him That Was Crucified
To a Common Prostitute
To You
Mannahatta
A Hand-Mirror
Visor'd
As if a Phantom Caress'd Me
So Long!
1865-66:
Drum-Taps (1865) and Sequel to Drum-Taps (1865-66):
Shut Not Your Doors
Beat! Beat! Drums!
City of Ships
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
Bivouac on a Mountain Side
An Army Corps on the March (1865-66)
By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame
Come Up from the Fields Father
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim
As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods
The Wound-Dresser
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
A Farm Picture
Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun
To a Certain Civilian
Years of the Modern
Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice
As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado (1865-66)
Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd
I Saw Old General at Bay
Look Down Fair Moon
Reconciliation (1865-66)
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1865-66)
O Captain! My Captain! (1865-66)
Old War-Dreams (1865-66)
Chanting the Square Deific (1865-66)
I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ (1865-66)
1867:
One's Self I Sing
The Runner
When I Read the Book
1871:
Passage to India
Proud Music of the Storm
A Noiseless Patient Spider
The Last Invocation
On the Beach at Night
Sparkles from the Wheel
Gods
Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
Ethiopia Saluting the Colors
1872:
The Mystic Trumpeter
1876:
Prayer of Columbus
To a Locomotive in Winter
The Ox-Tamer
1881:
The Dalliance of the Eagles
A Clear Midnight
1888:
As I Sit Writing Here
Broadway
1891:
Unseen Buds
Good-bye My Fancy!
PROSE WRITINGS
"The Child's Champion"
Prefaces and Afterwords from Leaves of Grass:
Preface to "Leaves of Grass", 1855
Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Leaves of Grass", 1856
Preface to "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free," 1872
Preface to the Centennial Edition of "Leaves of Grass", 1876
"A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads," 1888
"Democratic Vistas"
From Specimen Days
"Slang in America"
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index of Titles and First Lines