Washington D.C.: N.p. [Smith & McDougal], 1872

12mo, pp. [viii] 7-384 + [iv] 5-120 [ii]. Pale green endpapers and pastedowns. Original dark green boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Bookplates to front pastedown and front free endpaper. Dark green clamshell box, lettered in gilt to spine. Recased and with some strengthening to spine, Japanese tissue repair to reattached front flyleaves, ephemera and corners.

Fifth edition, INSCRIBED BY WHITMAN IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION TO THE JOURNALIST, AUTHOR AND UNION SOLDIER R. J. HINTON, ONE OF WHITMAN'S EARLIEST CHAMPIONS: 'R. J. Hinton, from Walt Whitman with his love. Washington, April 1872.'

First published in 1855, the editions of Leaves of Grass published during Walt Whitman's lifetime contain multitudes. First published in 1855 as a slim volume of twelve poems, by the time of Whitman's death in 1892, succeeding editions of Leaves of Grass had been so enthusiastically revised and appended that the 'deathbed edition' of 1891-2 ran to 438 pages. Bound in with Leaves of Grass in this edition of 1872 is Passage to India, the two works appearing in the same volume for the first time. Both are reprinted here from their respective 1871 editions with some minor revisions and alterations, almost all to typography rather than text.\

Richard J. Hinton [1830-1901], to whom this volume was presented by Whitman, was born in London, and relocated to the US in 1851. Having trained as a printer, he travelled to Kansas with his friend, the journalist, publisher and fellow abolitionist James Redpath [1833-1891] to support John Brown. (Hinton and Redpath would later co-author Hand-book to Kansas Territory and the Rocky Mountains' Gold Region (New York: J.H. Colton, 1859).) But for an accident which prevented him from travelling, Hinton would have fought alongside Brown in the raid on Harper's Ferry; in the aftermath, a man mistaken for Hinton was hanged. Hinton served in the Union Army between 1861 and 1865, and later recalled meeting Whitman for the first time while lying wounded in a hospital (Washington Letter, published in the Cincinnatti Commercial, 26 August 1871).

The bookplate to the front pastedown is that of the bibliographer and book collector Jacob Chester Chamberlain [1860-1905]. On 17 February 1909 Chamberlain's library was dispersed at a dedicated sale at the Anderson Galleries, New York. This volume was Lot 666 (a clipping of its listing in the original auction catalogue is tipped in to this volume.) The second bookplate, to the verso of the front free endpaper, is that of the department store owner and book collector William F. Gable [1856-1921].

BAL 21407; LC Whitman 346