Intimate with Walt: Selections from Whitman's Conversations with Horace Traubel, 1888-1892

Poets and scholars will delight in Intimate with Walt: Selections from Whitman's Conversations with Horace Traubel, 1888-1892, culled by Gary Schmidgall from 5,000 pages of Whitman verbosity (the first volume was published in 1906). Traubel, Whitman's trusty assistant late in his life, saw fit to transcribe much of what his esteemed and maligned boss said. On his accomplishments, Whitman is quoted as saying, ""Have I done it? Have I fulfilled my ambition? God knows. Here I am about stepping out with the case still undecided."" Dividing these selections into categories like ""Views of America,"" ""About Leaves of Grass,"" ""Walt and His Boys"" and ""Peeves,"" Schmidgall has compiled an invaluable resource. Four b&w photos.