Specimen Days and Collect

Walt Whitman

Published by Rees Welsh & Co., Philadelphia, 1882

About this Item

[ii], iii-vi, 7-376. Very Good condition. Yellow fabric-covered boards. Fabric shows some staining on the front cover and spine in particular and some wear to the corner. Some minor foxing and former owner's name on front fly leaf and first page of text. Binding is tight, text unblemished.

Specimen Days and Collect are two works bound together collecting together a miscellany of Whitman's recollections and reminiscences of Civil War and post-Civil War America. Whitman himself said that the contents were compiled together from earlier "memoranda." Specimen Days in particular has an autobiographical feel.

According to Whitman he was somewhat rushed by the publisher to collect together the contents of this book. Rees Welsh & Co. was likely seeking to capitalize on the surge in interest in Whitman's work following the pulling of the 1881 Leaves of Grass because of the warning of an obscenity charge.

This copy appears to have belonged to Melvin Tayler of Bloomfield, Ontario. Tayler was a pilot officer and air observer in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Born in Bloomfield in 1913, Tayler was killed in a flying accident in Sierra Leone and is buried in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Seller Inventory # 454

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Specimen Days and Collect
• Publisher: Rees Welsh & Co., Philadelphia
• Publication Date: 1882
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dimensions: 5.5W x 8.5H x 1.5D inches 5.5 inches width by 8.5 inches height by 1.5 inches depth