Leaves of Grass

Leaves of Grass is a collection of poetry by American writer Walt Whitman (18191892). The collection was first printed on July 4, 1855 in Brooklyn at a Fulton Street printing shop. About 800 copies were printed. The book was 95 pages long and had 12 poems. Whitman paid for this first printing. The book did not sell well.
Whitman added material to "Leaves of Grass" and revised the book many times during his life. The most famous poems in the book are "Song of Myself", "I Sing the Body Electric", "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking", and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". The collection praised the human body, the material world, nature, and the experience of the senses at a time when poetry focused on religious experience and the life of the spirit.