17 h 37 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
How does a Brooklyn printer find the courage to claim a voice for a whole nation?
In A Life of Walt Whitman, Henry Bryan Binns follows the man behind the strange, loud and loving poems of Leaves of Grass. The journey begins on Long Island and moves through print shops and newsrooms, where Whitman learns how words take shape on a page and reach a crowd.
Binns writes as an admirer, drawing on letters, notebooks, newspaper work and conversations with people who know the poet. He follows Whitman into Washington’s war hospitals and traces the clash between loyal friends and critics who call his work indecent. At the heart of this biography is a question: how does a poet live what he writes?
What you’ll discover
- The boy behind the poet Meet the Long Island child before the print shops, poems and public controversy.
- Words shaped by hand Follow Whitman through printing offices and newsrooms, where words meet the daily crowd.
- A bold first book Discover the thin, green-covered Leaves of Grass and the ambition behind its poems.
- Care amid the war See another side of Whitman as he volunteers in Washington’s war hospitals.
- Loyalty against public scandal Encounter the friends who defend Whitman and the critics who condemn his work.
Who will love it
For readers who love poetry or American history and want the life behind Leaves of Grass. It suits anyone curious about how a poet is made, from print shops and newsrooms to wartime hospital wards.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Long Island boyhood shapes the poet
- Years of print and newspaper work
- Leaves of Grass breaks every rule
- The war turns the poet into a nurse
- Scandal, loyal friends and a failing body
- Camden, the last years and the legacy
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- Audiobook
- 17 h 37 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Une vie de Walt Whitman
by Henry Bryan Binns · 1905
A Brooklyn printer claims a voice for a whole nation as friends defend him and critics call his poems indecent.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
A Life of Walt Whitman is a biography of the American poet, written by the English author Henry Bryan Binns and published in 1905, thirteen years after Whitman died. Binns came to his subject as an admirer.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Long Island boyhood shapes the poet
Walter Whitman was born on 31 May 1819 at West Hills, on Long Island, New York. His father, also named Walter, was a farmer and carpenter of English descent. His mother, Louisa Van Velsor, came from Dutch farming stock. Binns gives weight to this mixed inheritance, and to the Quaker leanings of the household, which he links to the poet's later trust in inner light over church authority.
The family was large and often short of money. When Walt was about four, they moved to Brooklyn, then a growing town, where his father built houses and speculated with little luck. Several of Walt's brothers and sisters were troubled in mind or body, and this left a mark on him. He felt a lasting duty toward his mother and toward his weaker siblings.
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What is A Life of Walt Whitman about?
It tells the life of the American poet Walt Whitman, from his birth on Long Island in 1819 to his death in Camden, New Jersey in 1892. It covers his work, his war service, his friends and the making of Leaves of Grass.
Who was Henry Bryan Binns?
Binns was an English writer who died in 1923. He wrote this biography in 1905 as an admirer of Whitman, and he also wrote a life of Abraham Lincoln. He drew on talks with people who knew the poet.
What is Leaves of Grass?
It is Whitman's main book of poems, first printed in 1855 and revised through many editions until his death. It praises the self, the body, work, democracy and comradeship, in long unrhymed lines that broke with the verse of its day.
The author
Henry Bryan Binns
1837–1899 · English biographer and poet
English Prime Minister of the Colony of Natal.
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