Selected Letters of Walt Whitman

There has never been an edition of the selected letter of Walt Whitman, a remarkable fact considering how accustomed we are to becoming acquainted with major writers through their letters. Now Edwin Haviland Miller, editor of the six-volume collected writings of Whitman, has used his intimate knowledge of the "good gray poet's" correspondence to produce this revealing selections of 250 letters, introduced and annotated concisely and evocatively. Whitman's voice in these letters is simple, direct, colloquial, only rarely does art intrude with its affectations. Other voices emerge in his prose writings, sometimes oratorical, sometimes acerbic, sometimes weary. Only when we listen to all the voices will we begin to understand this man whose complexities have confounded us for more than a century.