The Design and Typography ofLeaves of Grass(1860)

Abstract

Walt Whitman's experience as a printer was important to his writing, and it also led him to take an active role in the design of Leaves of Grass. Whitman's use of many different decorative types for titling and numbering of poems, while derived from common practices in commercial typography of the time, was uncommon in book work and conveys the poet's identification with the working man and his deep concern for the structure of his book. Barbara Henry's bibliographic and typographic analysis of the 1860 edition looks at Whitman's design choices in the context of nineteenth-century printing technology.