Whitman, Walt. A Poem, As Consequent, Etc. Northampton, Mass: Printed by E. & L. Baskin and R. Warren at the Gehenna Press, 1955.
This broadside poem, accompanied by a wood-engraved portrait of Whitman by the American artist Leonard Baskin, is an early publication of the Gehenna Press.
![Walt Whitman. [Northampton, Mass: Gehenna Press, 1955?] Wood engraving.](https://exhibitions.lib.udel.edu/whitman/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2019/10/Walt-Whitman.-Northampton-Mass-Gehenna-Press-1955-Wood-engraving.-e1579106135633.jpg "Walt Whitman. [Northampton, Mass: Gehenna Press, 1955?] Wood engraving.")
Baskin, Leonard, 1922-2000. Walt Whitman. [Northampton, Mass: Gehenna Press, 1955?] Wood engraving.
Thomson, James, 1834–1882. Selections from Original Contributions by James Thomson to “Cope’s Tobacco Plant.” Liverpool: Cope’s Tobacco Plant, 1889.
Cope Brothers and Company, a large tobacco firm in Liverpool, England was one of the pioneers in mass advertising and mail-order sales. Under the direction of its manager, John Fraser, they produced several magazines and pamphlet series which interspersed advertisements promoting the company’s products with articles extolling the benefits of smoking in general, often incorporating selections of poetry and prose by contemporary and classic authors. Whitman contributed several pieces to Cope's Tobacco Plant and this volume from Cope’s Smoke Room Booklets includes a two-page tribute to Whitman by the poet and radical James Thomson, best remembered for his The City of Dreadful Night (1881).
Mark Samuels Lasner Collection.
Cope’s Christmas Card for 1883 (Watercolor on paper, 1883).
Wallace, John, 1841-1905. Cope’s Christmas Card for 1883 (Watercolor on paper, 1883).
The tobacco firm Cope Brothers commissioned the English artist John Wallace (who used the pseudonym George Pipeshanks) to produce satirical artwork for their advertising campaigns. Such Christmas “cards” as this were printed as large lithographs and distributed annually to customers for only the cost of postage In this 1883 version Wallace depicts numerous contemporary artists, writers, and politicians, including Walt Whitman who appears on the far left. Accompanying the watercolor is the printed Key to Cope’s Christmas Card which identifies all of the more than eighty individuals in the painting. Mark Samuels Lasner Collection.
Photograph of Walt Whitman, ca. 1870-1872.
Whitman signed this carte-de-visite—“Walt Whitman 1873” and sent it as a token of friendship to William Michael Rossetti, who had edited the first English edition of Poems by Walt Whitman, published in 1868. This apparently unrecorded image of the poet was likely taken in Brooklyn, New York.
Mark Samuels Lasner Collection.
![Autograph note, [n.d.], 1 p., accompanied by a photograph of Whitman. (Note)](https://exhibitions.lib.udel.edu/whitman/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2019/10/Autograph-note-n.d.-1-p.-accompanied-by-a-photograph-of-Whitman.-Note-e1579106147547.jpg "Autograph note, [n.d.], 1 p., accompanied by a photograph of Whitman. (Note)")
Whitman, Walt. Autograph note, [n.d.], 1 p., accompanied by a photograph of Whitman.
In this note, Whitman gives the following instructions: “Please send this up to the binders (men or women) who are working on my book--& I herewith send them my best respects-.WW”
Whitman, Walt. Autograph letter to Thomas Donaldson, 9 June 1889, 1p.
In this letter, Whitman asks Donaldson to confirm if a check he received from the British actor Henry Irving is meant for him, and makes note of his poor financial situation. The accompanying envelope is also inscribed in Whitman’s hand. Thomas Donaldson (1843–1898) was a lawyer from Philadelphia and a friend of Whitman. He organized a fund-raising drive to buy Whitman a horse and carriage and wrote a biography of Whitman titled Walt Whitman, the Man (1896).
![“The same old mystery and problem,” manuscript poem, [n.d.], 1 p.](https://exhibitions.lib.udel.edu/whitman/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2019/10/“The-same-old-mystery-and-problem”-manuscript-poem-n.d.-1-p.-e1579106166126.jpg "“The same old mystery and problem,” manuscript poem, [n.d.], 1 p.")
Whitman, Walt. “The same old mystery and problem,” manuscript poem, [n.d.], 1 p.
This short manuscript poem is written in Whitman’s hand on the verso of a piece of ruled Department of Justice stationery. It consists of two passages which were later published posthumously in the 1899 Notes and Fragments. The passages were published as "first drafts and rejected lines and passages, mostly very fragmentary, from 'Leaves of Grass,' largely antecedent to the 1855 edition" by the book’s editor, Richard Maurice Bucke, who had received the manuscripts in his capacity as one of Whitman’s literary executors.
![Autograph letter to John Burroughs, [1874], 1 p.](https://exhibitions.lib.udel.edu/whitman/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2019/10/Autograph-letter-to-John-Burroughs-1874-1-p.-e1579106172482.jpg "Autograph letter to John Burroughs, [1874], 1 p.")
Whitman, Walt. Autograph letter to John Burroughs, [1874], 1 p.
In this letter to his friend, the naturalist John Burroughs, Whitman recounts his recent health issues and his hopes for possible new publications.
A Supermarket in California. Broadside, No. 1 of ten copies. [Newark, Delaware: Privately printed, n.d.]
Ginsberg, Allen, 1926-1997. A Supermarket in California. Broadside, No. 1 of ten copies. [Newark, Delaware: Privately printed, n.d.]
This broadside prints Allen Ginsberg’s well-known poem in which he encounters the poets Federico García Lorca and Walt Whitman shopping in a supermarket. Ginsberg wrote the poem while he was in Berkeley in 1955 and it was included in his groundbreaking collection, Howl and Other Poems (1956).
The Academy of American Poets Presents a Tribute to Walt Whitman: A Reading and Performance, with Lucille Clifton, Allen Ginsburg, Michael Harper, Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds, William Jay Smith, Gerald Stern, C.K. Williams & the Cathedral Singers, March 26, 1992.
This program to the Whitman tribute held at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine is signed by all of the participating poets.
Robert A. Wilson Collection.
