Leaves of Grass and Selected Poems and Prose

It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson’s recent film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin’s own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility. With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische’s hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series debuted with an ‘A’ for Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, a ‘B’ for Charlotte Brönte’s Jane Eyre, and a ‘C’ for Willa Cather’s My Ántonia. It continues with more perennial classics, perfect to give as elegant gifts or to showcase on your own shelves.

W is for Whitman. When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, it redefined the rules of poetry while describing the soul of the American character. Throughout his life, Whitman continuously revised, expanded, and republished Leaves of Grass, but the 1855 original marked Whitman’s fresh and bold arrival, greeted by Ralph Waldo Emerson as “the beginning of a great career.” This volume specially compiled for Penguin Drop Caps will also include a range of additional popular poems including selections from “Calamus,” “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” and “Drum-Taps,” as well as Whitman’s 1855, 1856 and 1976 prefaces and “Democratic Vistas.”

About the Contributors

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) was born on Long Island and educated in Brooklyn, NY. He served as a printer’s devil, journeyman compositor, and itinerant schoolteacher, edited the Long Islander, and in 1846 became editor of The Brooklyn Eagle, a position from which he was discharged for political reasons. After a period in New Orleans, considered seminal in shaping his philosophy, he returned to Brooklyn. Although he had earlier affected the mien of a dandy, he now dressed as a “rough,” and became prominent among the bohemian element of New York. In 1855 he published the first of many editions of Leaves of Grass. The Civil War found him working as an unofficial nurse to Northern and Southern soldiers in army hospitals in Washington D.C. After the war he became a clerk in the Indian Bureau of the Department of the Interior, from which he was shortly dismissed by the Secretary on the grounds that LEAVES OF GRASS was an immoral book. During his last nineteen years he lived in Camden, New Jersey. Among his works are Drum-Taps (1865), Democratic Vistas and Passage to India (1871), and Specimen Days (1882).

Jessica Hische is a letterer, illustrator, typographer, and web designer. She currently serves on the Type Directors Club board of directors, has been named a Forbes Magazine “30 under 30” in art and design as well as an ADC Young Gun and one of Print Magazine’s “New Visual Artists”. She has designed for Wes Anderson, McSweeney’s, Tiffany & Co, Penguin Books and many others. She resides primarily in San Francisco, occasionally in Brooklyn.