As energetic and diverse as the American life it describes, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass has been loved by generations for its celebration of a brash young nation and one man's exuberant spirit. First published at the author's expense in 1955, this collection of poems was revised and enlarged throughout Whitman's lifetime, and is presented here in the final or "Deathbed edition" of 1892.

"Effortlessly blending biography, criticism, and memoir, National Book Award-winning poet and best- selling memoirist Mark Doty explores his personal quest for Walt Whitman. Mark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman's bold, new American voice, and by his equally radical claims about body and soul and what it means to be a self. In What Is the Grass, Doty-a poet, a lover of men, a New Yorker, and an American-keeps company with Whitman and his...

Three tales set in the 19th Century. In Victoria, a scientist breeds a replica of Queen Victoria and when the real queen disappears, the government uses her as a replacement. In Hottentots, Massachusetts is threatened by H.P. Lovecraft-style monsters from the deep and, of course, Hottentots. In Walt and Emily, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson travel to the world of spirits to meet the future Alan Ginsberg.