Walt Whitman's New York: From Manhattan to Montauk [Paperback]

Henry M. Christman (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 11, 1998

This is probably the most notable of all regional books about New York and Long Island. It is the work of Walt Whitman, and its pages reveal the serious professional journalist, and not seldom the poet, writing brave things in prose. The editor comments in his introduction, "Whitman, though a native of the New York area, loved it and wrote of it with the zeal and zest usually found only in those from elsewhere who have made New York their chosen home." Indeed, he lived in the region for the first forty-two years of his life; successfuly edited newspapers in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Long Island; and wrote for many years following. The articles collected in this volume by Henry M. Christman were conceived as a book by their author but appeared in a series entitled "Brooklyniana" that appeared in the Brooklyn Standard. All bear the impress of Whitman's humanity and show the breadth of his interest in "the great play of life and business going on around us."

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Henry M. Christman is the author and editor of more than twenty books, represented in some fifty editions. He is a former New York State and New York City commissioner.

Product Details

• Paperback: 202 pages
• Publisher: New Amsterdam Books (August 11, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941533778
• ISBN-13: 978-0941533775
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,299,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, near Huntington, Long Island, New York. On July 4, 1855, the first edition of Leaves of Grass, the volume of poems that for the next four decades would become his lifes work, was placed on sale. Although some critics treated the volume as a joke and others were outraged by its unprecedented mixture of mysticism and earthiness, the book attracted the attention of some of the finest literary intelligences. His poetry slowly achieved a wide readership in America and in England, where he was praised by Swinburne and Tennyson. (D. H. Lawrence later referred to Whitman as the"greatest modern poet, and"the greatest of Americans. Whitman suffered a stroke in 1873 and was forced to retire to Camden, New Jersey, where he would spend the last twenty years of his life. There he continued to write poetry, and in 1881 the seventh edition of Leaves of Grass was published to generally favorable reviews. However, the book was soon banned in Boston on the grounds that it was obscene literature. In January 1892 the final edition of Leaves of Grass appeared on sale, and Whitman's life work was complete. He died two months later on the evening of March 26, 1892, and was buried four days afterward at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden.