Walt Whitman and the Civil War: America's Poet During the Lost Years of 1860-1862 Hardcover - 2009

From the rear cover

"This is one of the most remarkable studies of Whitman that I've seen in many a year...penetrating and original."--Jerome Loving, author of Walt Whitman: the Song of Himself and The Last Titan: A Life of Theodore Dreiser

"This lovely portrait of Walt Whitman's life as the nation slid into the Civil War is a subtle and intricate gift. Ingeniously reconstructing a lost historical record, Genoways rescues a crucial period in the life of our greatest poet. In the process, he illuminates these mysterious years of the nation's past."--Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America

"Walt Whitman and the Civil War strikes an admirable balance between scholarly research and narrative drama. Genoways has delivered an exciting literary history of America at war with herself and has positioned at the nation's very center the century's greatest poet."--Billy Collins

"Sherlock Holmes could not have done better. Ted Genoways has traced and documented--in poems and articles, published and unpublished (rejected, actually!)--Walt Whitman's 'lost' years, the years when the man who eventually heard America singing found his own voice and not incidentally transformed himself from Walter to Walt, even as the country marched to war. An unsentimental, yet eloquent (and definitively footnoted) detective story/homage."--Victor Navasky, Chairman, The Columbia Journalism Review and former Editor and Publisher, The Nation

"Debunking the myth that Whitman was unaffected by America's march to war in 1860--and armed with fresh discoveries and new letters--Ted Genoways illuminates the tumultuous two-year period in the life of America and its beloved bard. With its graceful prose and serious scholarship, Walt Whitman and the Civil War is a must-read for Whitman enthusiasts--and everyone else."--Brenda Wineapple, author of White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Media reviews

Citations

• Choice, 05/01/2010, Page 0
• Chronicle of Higher Education, 09/18/2009, Page 17
• Publisher's Weekly Annex, 10/19/2009, Page 0