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Transcripts from lost notebooks of Walt Whitman

 Collection — Box: 1
Call Number: MS 222

Overview

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) wrote drafts and jottings in notebooks which (or leaves from which) were collected by various people. A large group (the Thomas B. Harned Collection) went to the Library of Congress (LC); ten of those notebooks (LC numbers 80, 84, 86-89, 94, 101, 111, 220) were lost in the 1940s. Photostats of a few pages had been made, a few texts printed, and several people had previously transcribed selections fromt he notebooks. The collection described here consists of photocopies of transcripts that Professor Emory Holloway of Brooklyn College and others had made, annotated and given to Professor Edward F. Grier, KU Department of English. The fragile original transcripts, mostly typed before 1920, do not circulate, and are shelved at MS Pryce P1. Grier, who often marked the transcripts, used them when editing his book, Notes and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts of Walt Whitman (NY: NYC Press, 1984), shelved at Special Collections D2538. Other Grier Whitman material is to be found int he University Archives at call number PP 302 in the Personal Papers of Edward F. Grier, a collection including notes, correspondence and proofs for his book.

Dates

  • Creation: approximately 1900-1976

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

None

Conditions Governing Use

Spencer Library staff may determine use restrictions dependent on the physical condition of manuscript materials.

Extent

1 box

Language of Materials

English

Physical Location

MS 222

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by Edward F. Grier, 1974-1976.

General

Along with the few photostats and printed extracts from Walt Whitman's lost notebooks, transcriptions made by various people are the primary evidence for the notebooks' contents. The transcriptions in MS 222 are extremely miscellaneous: in the first place, Whitman's jottings were contrained by neither time nor subject; secondly, a single sheet of transcript may contain paragraphs from several different notebooks. When a transcriber identifies a notebook, it may be by a private mnemonic, by a Harned number, or by the Lc number. Grier's books hould be used with the transcripts.

Title
Guide to the Guide to the Walt Whitman Collection.
Subtitle
Transcripts from lost notebooks of Walt Whitman
Author
Finding aid prepared by alh, 1976?; revised by ksc, 2007. Finding aid encoded by skt, 2007.
Date
2007
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
Finding aid written in<language encodinganalog="language">English.</language>
Finding aid permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/10407/9624573436
Preferred citation
Guide to the Walt Whitman Collection , Department of Special Collections, MS 222, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries

Repository Details

Part of the University of Kansas. Kenneth Spencer Research Library Repository

Contact:
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Lawrence KS 66045-7616 United States
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