Walt Whitman's Memoranda During the War

"Whitman kept notes on his Washington experiences, later working them up into newspaper articles and lectures, which in 1876 he published in a limited edition under the title Memoranda During the War. The Memoranda are now republished under the editorship of Peter Coviello, with a well-informed, thoughtful introduction and succinct notes."--JM Coetzee, The New York Review of Books "These 'impromptu jottings'--descriptions of soldiers' last breaths; their recoveries; their requests for toothbrushes, pickles, rice pudding, fresh underwear, a good book, a pen, an ice cream treat, a letter to be sent home--later became 'Memoranda During the War,' a slim volume that Whitman published in a private edition in 1876.... It now resurfaces--to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the first edition of 'Leaves of Grass,' also reissued by Oxford University Press--in an authoritative version, thoughtfully annotated and introduced by Peter Coviello."--Los Angeles Times Book Review "As Peter Coviello points out in his excellent introduction to this volume, Whitman came late to the scene of the Civil War, but, when he did so, he produced one of the few truly indispensable books about it. Memoranda During the War is written in prose that often compares well for beauty and intensity with the best poems in Leaves of Grass. It is easy to see why the book has served as a model for writers on the desolations of war from Stephen Crane to Hemingway to our own day."--Michael Moon, Johns Hopkins University "When Walt Whitman said that the real Civil War would never get into the books, he was wrong. It got into this one. Memoranda During the War is a brave and beautiful act of witness by America's greatest poet--and one of her greatest souls."--Roy Morris, Jr., author of The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War