About the Exhibit

Lehigh's Leaves of Grass

This online exhibition complements the Lehigh University Art Galleries' exhibition titled "Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass", which displays selections from Lehigh University Special Collections, designed and installed by Clorinde Peters, the Gallery staff and Prof. Ed Whitley. For more information about the Art Galleries' exhibition, follow this link: http://www.luag.org/

Special Collections owns every major edition and printing published during Whitman's lifetime, with the exception of the 1876 Centennial edition of Leaves of Grass. The exhbit also includes a Special Collections flyer on Lehigh's editions of Leaves of Grass, an autographed letter and a Whitman manuscript.

Whitman was 37 years old and an unknown poet when he financed and published Leaves of Grass, a 95-page book of free verse poetry, with the Rome Brothers printing company in Brooklyn. When he died in 1892, Whitman's reputation had spread throughout much of the United States, England, and Europe. Today Leaves of Grass is considered one of the most important literary works ever published in the United States. The works in this online exhibition show how this important book evolved from a slim volume of 95 pages (10 pages of introduction and 85 pages of poetry) to over a 400-page-long literary masterpiece.

To learn more about Walt Whitman and the editions of Leaves of Grass, visit Whitman Archives at http://www.whitmanarchive.org

Online exhibition only. A small selection is on display in Zoellner Arts Center.