Selected Letters of Walt Whitman
"[Whitman's] letters are both revealing and evocative, a generous offering of a whole array of selves shaped by his circumstances and by his tactful sense of audience."—Kirkus Reviews
"In carefully choosing 250 from the thousands of letters Whitman wrote, Miller has fashioned a revealing and fascinating autobiography of America's great poet."—Choice
"This book will serve as an excellent introduction to Whitman … a marvelously well-equipped edition of letters."—Walt Whitman Quarterly
“The Whitman that this volume distills turns out to be a powerful letter-writer; this is a version of Whitman that we meet here for the first time, and he emerges as something of a revelation.”—Ed Folsom
There has never been an edition of the selected letters of Walt Whitman, a remarkable fact considering how accustomed we are to becoming acquainted with major writers through their letters. Now Edwin Haviland Miller, editor of the six-volume collected writings of Whitman, has used his intimate knowledge of the "good gray poet's" correspondence to produce this revealing selection of 250 letters, introduced and annotated concisely and evocatively. Whitman in these letters is simple, direct, colloquial, adding a counterpoint to his artistic voice and persona as a poet.