Re-Scripting Walt Whitman: An Introduction to His Life and Work

"...Their Re-Scripting Walt Whitman is far more than an introductory guide to the poet's life and work. Folsom and Price have produced an incisive, gracefully written book that offers an important new approach to Leaves of Grass ... The result is a book valuable for whoever, novice or expert, undertakes to hold Walt Whitman in hand."

Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, Volume Twenty-Three, Numbers Three/Four, Winter/Spring 2006

“Drawing on their extensive experience with electronic editing, more specifically, their work with the Walt Whitman Archive, Ed Folsom and Ken Price reconstruct the details of the poet's life and thread through that life the complex but fascinating story of Whitman's evolving master-piece, Leaves of Grass. By emphasizing the manuscript origins of the poetry, Folsom and Price reveal that just about everything we thought we knew about this much-discussed writer and his work is subject to revision. At nearly every turn, Re-Scripting Walt Whitman seems to proclaim, ‘Allons! the road is before us!’ ” Donald D. Kummings, Co-editor, Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia

“Whitman is America’s ever-fluid text. Thorough, concise, and engagingly written, Re-scripting Walt Whitman illuminates the life and works — the poet’s sexuality, politics, and ceaseless growth — with an important new emphasis on manuscripts, revision, and the innovative online Whitman Archive that will startle general readers and literary scholars alike.” John Bryant, Hofstra University

"A splendid primer to the complexities of Whitman's prose and verse. Folsom and Price expertly trace the evolution of Whitman's career and the gradual growth of Leaves of Grass. Scholars no less than novices will be inspired to read Whitman with fresh insight." Gary F. Scharnhorst, University of New Mexico

“Re-Scripting Walt Whitman accomplishes two significant tasks at once. It ties Whitman's poetry to his life in a clear, down-to-earth narrative of biographical detail and literary accomplishment. And it breaks new ground in its portrayal of Whitman as a working poet, one who knew his way around a print shop and based his radical innovations on an intimate knowledge of type, print, ink, and bookmaking. Drawing on their own experience in constructing a new electronic Whitman archive, Ed Folsom and Kenneth Price provide unique lessons in reading the actual materiality of Whitman's poems as the first step toward grasping their meanings.” Alan Trachtenberg, Yale University