Home / Browse / Autographs & Signed Books / At the graveside of Walt Whitman: Harleigh, Camden, New Jersey, March 30th and Sprigs of Lilac.
(WHITMAN, Walt) TRAUBEL, Horace (ed.)
At the graveside of Walt Whitman: Harleigh, Camden, New Jersey, March 30th and Sprigs of Lilac.
Edited by Horace L. Traubel.
Limited edition, numbered and autographed by the editor (no. 372 of 750 copies), this a presentation copy further inscribed across the half-title: "To Fithian Simmons with the regards of The Editor, March 1894". Fithian S. Simmons was the Camden undertaker, with premises at 309 Market Street. It is not known whether he acted at Whitman's funeral (the accounts we have read refer only to an anonymous undertaker). It may be that he requested a copy of the publication that includes memorial verses which are now often used in funeral services in the United States. The contents are: "Some solemn immortal birth", by Walt Whitman; "Goodbye, Walt" by E.C. Stedman; At the graveside of Walt Whitman [readings and addresses]; Sprigs of lilac, clipt from sundry letters [various authors]; "He was in love with truth" by Harrison S. Morris; and "At the last tenderly" by Walt Whitman. The half-title is titled "Good-bye and hail Walt Whitman." The funeral was further notable for the controversial address given by the atheist Robert G. Ingersoll, and for the autopsy carried out on Whitman shortly before it.
Octavo, pamphlet, 40 pp. Fine grey handmade paper, uncut edges, in self wraps. Single leaf prospectus printed on cream paper, folded three times, loosely inserted. Spine defective and front wrapper detached, outer leaves a little dusty and chipped, back wrapper chipped with loss at upper outer corner, otherwise clean, a good copy.
