Love, War, and Revision in Whitman's Blue Book

Abstract

The Blue Book—a copy of the 1 86 0 edition of Leaves of Grass in blue paper covers that Whitman heavily annotated and used as the basis for a never-published future edition—was a locus for Whitman's substantive and stylistic changes. The Blue Book is one of the most dramatic manifestations of Whitman editing himself—recasting, rejecting, rearranging, repurposing Leaves of Grass on the basis of one of its earlier incarnations. The book vividly displays Whitman's compositional practices and evolving thinking, particularly as it changed during (and in response to) the Civil War.