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Leaves of Grass

Leaves of Grass by American poet Walt Whitman was first published in 1855. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic (a lengthy narrative poem.) He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. The work started as a collection of 12 unnamed poems. However, Whitman spent most of his life writing and re-writing Leaves of Grass, resulting in many different editions published throughout his life. The final collection, which is recorded here, is a compilation of about 400 poems separated into 35 books.

This book is notable for its discussion of delight in sensual pleasures and exalting the body and the material world. At the time, such candid displays were considered highly immoral, which led to reviews considering it "offensive", "obscene", "a mass of stupid filth", or suggesting it should have been burned after writing. Leaves of Grass even became banned in various locations, which only led to increased sales, with some printings even selling out on the first day. To this day, the work's legacy remains strong, and is one of the most important collections of American poetry.

Among some of the best-known poems contained in this work are "O captain! My captain!", "I sing the body electric", and "Song of Myself".

AUDIO: Reading by Mary Foon, running time: 18 hours, 37 min. Unabridged full version.

Walter "Walt" Whitman (1819–1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A 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.


  1. The Wit and Humor of America (Vol. 1-10) : Comedy Anthology: Funny Stories, Poems, Humorous Articles, Fables & Fairy Tales

    O.Henry, Mark Twain, Washington Irving, Bret Harte, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Benjamin Franklin, Edward Everett Hale, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Kendrick Bangs, William Dean Howells, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Henry Ward Beecher, John G. Saxe, James Russell Lowell, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Robert W. Chambers, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Wallace Irwin, Eugene Field, Anne Virginia Culbertson, John Paul, Lloyd Osbourne, James Montgomery Flagg, Bill Nye, Robert J. Burdette, Wilbur D. Nesbit, Gelett Burgess, James Whitcomb Riley, Frank L. Stanton, Bayard Taylor, Artemus Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Ward, Charles Dudley Warner, Carolyn Wells, Owen Wister

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  2. Sangen om mig selv

    Walt Whitman

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  3. The Complete Poetry of Walt Whitman : 450+ Poems & Verses: Leaves of Grass, O Captain My Captain, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd

    Walt Whitman

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  4. Leaves of Grass: The Original 1855 Edition

    Walt Whitman, Pocket Classic

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  5. De sovende

    Walt Whitman

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  6. Digte

    Walt Whitman

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  7. WALT WHITMAN Ultimate Collection: 500+ Works in Poetry & Prose : Leaves of Grass, Franklin Evans, The Half-Breed, Manly Health and Training, Specimen Days…

    Walt Whitman

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  8. 50 Classic Love Poems You Have To Read (Golden Deer Classics)

    Lord Byron, Golden Deer Classics, Christina Rossetti, Walt Whitman, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Khalil Gibran, Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alfred Tenysson, Edgar Allan Poe, John Keats, Andrew Marvell, Rabindranath Tagore, Elizabeth Barret, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Sara Teasdale, George Etherege, Michael Drayton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Burns, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Patience Worth, Christopher Brennan, Oscar Wilde, Christopher Marlowe, William Morris, John Clare, Thomas Moore, Robert Louis Stevenson, Anne Bradstreet, John Boyle O'Reilly, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leigh Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Sir Walter Scott, John Wilmot, Robert Herrick

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  9. Til græsset ved søens bred er jeg flygtet

    Walt Whitman

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  10. Perfect Love, Emotional Romance: A Heartwarming Collection of 100 Classic Poems and Letters for the Lovers (Valentine's Day 2019 Edition)

    William Shakespeare, Christina Rossetti, Walt Whitman, Golden Deer Classics, Lord Byron, John Donne, Kahlil Gibran, Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alfred Tennyson, Edgar Allan Poe, John Keats, Andrew Marvell, Rabindranath Tagore, Elizabeth B. Browning, Ella W. Wilcox, Sara Teasdale, George Etherege, Michael Drayton, Samuel T. Coleridge, Robert Burns, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Patience Worth, Christopher John Brennan, Oscar Wilde, C., unknown, William Morris, John Clare, Thomas Moore, Robert Louis Stevenson, Anne Bradstreet, John B. O'Reilly, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leigh Hunt, Dante G. Rossetti, Sir Walter Scott, John Wilmot, Robert Herrick, Ludwig van Bethoveen, Emma Darwin, Charles Darwin, Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Honoré de Balzac, Napoleon Bonaparte, Voltaire, Henry VIII, Leo Tolstoy, Gustave Flaubert, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jack London, Johann Von Goethe, James Joyce, Abigail Adams, Sullivan Ballou, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Pietro Bembo, Charlotte Brontë, Lewis Carroll, Catherine Of Aragon, Mark Twain, John Constable, Oliver Cromwell, Ninon De L'Enclos, Alfred de Musset, Zelda Fitzgerald, Mary Wollstonecraft, Heloise, Count Gabriel De Mirbeau, Lyman Hodge, King Henry IV, Franz Liszt, Katherine Mansfield, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Thomas Otway, Ovid, Robert Schumann, Vincent van Gogh, Tsarina Alexandra, Laura Lyttleton

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  11. 101 Great American Poems : To My Dear and Loving Husband, The Planting of the Apple-Tree, Concord Hymn, The Arrow and the Song, Alone, Annabel Lee and others

    Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Abraham Lincoln, Oliver Wendell Holmes Holmes, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Frances E. W. W Harper, Emily Dickinson, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Ernest Lawrence Thayer, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Stephen Crane, James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Gertrude Stein, Vachel Lindsay, Claude Mckay, Countee Cullen, Amy Lowell, James Oppenheim, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emma Lazarus, Louisa May Alcott, Ellis Parker Butler, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Matthew Arnold, William Butler Yeats, William Blake, Sara Teasdale, William Barnes

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  12. Fireside Christmas Stories :

    Walt Whitman

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