-First British Edition of Whitman’s Poetry

The first person to publish Whitman’s poetry in the United Kingdom was John Camden Hotten, a London-based publisher who specialized in Americana, erotica, and avant-garde poetry. Under close scrutiny due to recent anti-pornography laws, Hotten partnered with writer and critic William Michael Rossetti to produce an expurgated edition of Whitman’s poetry that removed about half of Whitman’s poems, including his iconic “Song of Myself.” While Whitman was grateful that his poems reached a larger audience, he referred to the Rossetti edition as “the horrible dismemberment of my book.”