-Sixth Edition

Whitman published the sixth and final edition of Leaves of Grass in Boston in 1881 and then again in Philadelphia in 1882. After its initial publication in Boston, Leaves of Grass was selling well (some 1,500 copies in six months) until a local district attorney took issue with the book’s sexual content and threatened to prosecute publisher James R. Osgood on obscenity charges. Whitman found a new publisher in Philadelphia who used the obscenity case to publicize a new printing of the book in mid-1882. The strategy worked, and Whitman ended up selling more than 6,000 copies by the end of the year.