A review by beckyann1110
Essential Whitman by Walt Whitman

5.0

A wonderful collection of Walt Whitman, especially interesting for the poet-editor's selection of the versions of poems. Leaves of Grass was published many times over the decades of Whitman's adulthood, with Whitman making sometimes drastic changes to the poems from edition to edition. In Essential Whitman, within some of the longer poems, he picks and chooses the best parts from editions ranging forty years apart -- to some this may seem like heresy, but the editor makes a good case for it in his lengthy and interesting introduction. More importantly, the poems shine in these versions. I'm no Whitman scholar, but for the casual reader, this is a major success.