Walt Whitman

A collection of quintessentially American poems, the seminal work of one of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century.

"O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won..." O'Captain, My Captain is an extended matephor written by Walt Whitman in 1865 about the death of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln. The work was popular and critically well received on publication, soon becoming Whitman's first to be anthologized as well as the most popular during his lifetime. It was one of the four poems he wrote about the death of the president, alongside When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, Hush'd Be the Camps To-day, and This Dust was Once the Man. Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.

Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful." Ralph Waldo Emerson found it "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet produced." Published at the author's expense on July 4, 1855, Leaves of Grass inaugurated a new voice and style into American letters and gave expression to an optimistic, bombastic vision that took the nation as its subject. Unlike many other editions of Leaves of Grass, which reproduce various short, early versions, this Modern Library Paperback Classics "Death-bed" edition presents everything Whitman wrote in its final form, and includes newly commissioned notes.