“One Precious Leaf”: Guido Bruno and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass
Written by Todd Giles, Ph.D.
I. Leaf Books
The title of this thin, odd little book is One Precious Leaf from the First Edition of Leaves of Grass. Published in 1930, One Precious Leaf is what is known as a leaf book. A leaf book is a specially bound book that contains an original leaf—that is, an original printed or handwritten manuscript page. A leaf is the basic bibliographic unit. That is, a piece of paper comprising one page on its front side (aka the recto) and another on its back (the verso). Each leaf has two pages. Leaf books also contain an introductory essay written by someone knowledgeable about the original book and its author. Leaf books have been published by booksellers, academic institutions, collectors, and even charlatans and swindlers like the chap we’re going to talk about in a bit. Another thing that sets leaf books apart from your regular garden variety book is that they tend to be printed and designed by specialty presses and well-known typographers.
John Carter and Nicolas Baker, authors of ABC for Book Collectors, take a somewhat harsher line on the practice of making and selling leaf books. For them, a leaf book is
a way of making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. A seriously imperfect copy of a famous book presented the opportunity: some suitable authority on the book would be asked to write an essay on it, a distinguished printer would be asked to give it typographic form, choosing a page slightly larger than that of the book in question, and printing as many copies as there were surviving leaves. The whole book would be handsomely bound, with one leaf of the original laid in. . . . Breaking-up is not to be condoned, even in a good cause. (140)
The first leaf book proper was printed in 1865—Francis Fry’s A Description of the Great Bible. Book collecting, while it had been around for generations prior to the development of the printing press, really took off in the 1920s, which is when leaf books came into their own, beginning with the most famous and most expensive leaf book, A Noble Fragment, Being a Leaf of the Gutenberg Bible, 1450–1455. Special Collections likewise owns a copy of this very special volume. A Nobel Fragment, which includes a bibliographic essay by A. Edward Newton, was published in New York in 1921. What makes A Nobel Fragment particularly precious is that there were only some two hundred original sets of the Bible printed by Gutenberg, only twenty-two of which are known to exist today as complete copies, with twenty-four other known copies missing leaves. As such, the Gutenberg Bible is the most coveted book printed in the world, and thus A Nobel Fragment likewise is the most valuable leaf book as well.
So, what’s the big deal about owning a single page from an old book? Keep in mind we’re talking about a time before the internet and free access to hundreds of thousands of digital versions of rare books archived, for example, by Project Guttenberg or Google Books. Reading about a book—and even reading a newer printing of it—can certainly be rewarding, but seeing and handling the original text, even if it’s just a single page . . . well, that’s something special. It’s tactile. Personal. Historical. It brings us that much closer to the author and the milieu in which the text was conceived and produced. It’s those things, particularly the idea of originality, that have driven the production of these rare, sought-after biblio-oddities.
Leaf books bring up some interesting ethical questions. In short, leaf books need an original book to break up into its constituent pages. The originary nature of the book—it’s aura of uniqueness in time and place, its historical value, perhaps even its spiritual & philosophical value—is destroyed once it is dismantled. On the flip side, breaking up a book allows it, at least a small part of it, to be disseminated to a much wider audience, albeit in a fragmented fashion. Does a pristine original fragment possess the same historical and cultural value, say, as its faulty parent book, had it been kept together? Are certain pages historically and/or financially worth more than others? The ethical debate about leaf books has been going on since they were first introduced to the market back in the 1860s. One thing is certain: collectors and libraries will continue to vie for them and, depending on their budgets, pay substantial sums for a single fragment of what was once whole.
II. Guido Bruno
A. B. Bogart, [Guido Bruno], ca. 1915. Museum of the City of New York.
Guido Bruno was the son of a Jewish Rabbi from a small village in Prague who lived between the years 1884 and 1942. He was a well-known Greenwich Village bohemian character who published several small literary magazines at the turn of the last century, including Bruno’s Weekly, Bruno’s Bohemia, and Greenwich Village.
He was known variously—and always somewhat derogatorily—as “The Barnum of Bohemia,” “the Mayor of the Village,” or simply as a “literary vagabond.” Bruno—whose birth name was Curt Kisch—arrived in New York at the age of 22 in 1906 with his younger brother. Having refashioned himself as a kind of avant-garde literary luminary, Bruno set up shop at 58 Washington Square South, at what became known as “Bruno’s Garrett.” The Garrett was billed as a place for struggling artists to work and hopefully sell some of their art. In reality, Bruno was milking the up-towners’ and out-of-towners’ thirst for seeing bohemian life, even when it was staged.
When a fire burned down his studio, Bruno moved on to open a bookstore in 1916. He was such a renowned swindler that none of the local bookshops would carry copies of his magazines to sell. Along with his magazines, he actually did publish a few books by authors who were to become some of the most important American modernists, including early works by Djuna Barnes, Hart Crane, and Alfred Kreymborg.
III. Walt Whitman
Throughout his career as America’s unsung bard, Walt Whitman published seven individual editions of Leaves of Grass, the first of which (under discussion here) was a small book of twelve un-named poems, the likes of which had never been unleashed upon the world. Whitman’s lines were long and flowing, employing neither the expected rhyme nor meter. Those things alone were unheard of. The closest connection one can make is to the rhythms and repetitions Whitman read in the King James Bible. Then too, there was the content of the poems—some of it spiritual, some of it sexual; all of it race, class, and gender-conscious. Truly, poetry would never be written the same following the publication of this book. His final version of Leaves of Grass, which is known as the Deathbed Edition of 1891–2, consisted of over four hundred poems.
The first edition of Leaves of Grass was published on July 4, 1855, in the Brooklyn printing shop of James and Andrew Rome, who Whitman had known since the 1840s. Whitman paid for and did much of the typesetting of the volume himself. Indeed, he could very well have handled the leaf in the book under discussion himself. Seven hundred ninety-five copies were printed. Two hundred copies were sent to a Brooklyn binder Charles Jenkins, who bound them for thirty-two cents a copy. Whitman chose the design—a decidedly feminine embossed green cover, gilded lettering, and Samuel Hollyer’s engraving of the 1854 photograph of Whitman taken by Gabriel Harrison. The remaining five hundred ninety-five copies were sent elsewhere for cheaper binding.
The slim ninety-five-page volume, even if we set aside the nature of the actual poetry itself, is unusual for several reasons. For starters, there is no table of contents and none of the poems have titles. Also, there is no author named on the title page. Instead, what we get is an engraving of him on the facing page with his large hat rakishly cocked to the side, one hand athwart his hip, the other in his pocket. His open collar exposes his flannel underwear, and he is sporting loose-fitting working man’s trousers.
This is most decidedly not how American authors of Whitman’s day presented themselves, neither in public nor in publicity photos. What Whitman is boldly doing here is presenting himself as a working man and women’s poet who is thumbing his nose at convention. In short, Whitman was one of the most un-poetly poets in history to date. That said, several of the un-named poems in the 1855 edition are some of the most accomplished poems ever written in the English language, including what, in the next edition of the book the following year, became titled “Song of Myself.” “I Sing the Body Electric,” and “The Sleepers.”
As mentioned above, approximately 800 copies of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass were printed, with only 200 bound in its green cloth cover. Perhaps Bruno’s copy was one of those printed with a cheaper binding, or as is often the case with leaf books, perhaps it came from a defective bound copy that was in some way damaged beyond use. We’ll never know.
Likewise, we don’t know where Bruno came across the book fated to be broken-up. Perhaps Bruno picked up his first edition copy of Leaves of Grass from Max Breslow, the most well-known Whitman collector of the early 20th century, whose bookshop Bruno frequented in New York. Indeed, in his 1922 book titled Adventures in American Bookshops, Antique Stores and Auction Rooms, Bruno, after making fun of Breslow’s small stature and youthful looks—(and hinting that he stole and then resold books to dealers as a boy)—says,
He has the most famous collection of Whitman items in this country. . . . He has original manuscripts of Whitman, proof sheets of his books, everything that was ever written in any language about Walt Whitman, more than four hundred pictures of the “good, gray poet,” and you couldn’t buy one of those precious things for any money in the world. (n.p.)
Like I said, though, we don’t actually know where Bruno scuppered his copy of the first edition of Leaves of Grass.
IV. One Precious Leaf
One Precious Leaf from the First Edition of Leaves of Grass was published in 1930 by the Bennett Book Studios of New York City. Whitman Bennet (no relation to the poet) opened his printshop in the late 1920s. Bennett sold rare books, particularly first editions and sets of American and English literary classics. He also operated the fine book bindery that produced One Precious Leaf.
Before making its way as an essay into 1930’s One Precious Leaf as “A Letter Written in Camden on the Twenty-Seventh Anniversary of His Death,” Bruno’s accompanying “letter” to Whitman first appeared as one of his “Snapshots of ‘People of Importance’” in the May 1919 issue of Pearson’s magazine, where Bruno was a regular contributor. It was next reprinted in Elizabeth Leavitt Keller’s 1921 book Walt Whitman in Mickle Street, and again that same year in Bruno’s own The Sacred Band: A Litany of In Gratitude, as “Walt Whitman: Twenty Years After.” It seems Bruno liked to milk his writing for as much as he could.
Let’s take a look at the book itself. The title along the spine is embossed in gold. On our example, the title is printed upside down, which very well might be the binder’s mistake. On the front cover, we see more of the gilt lettering embossed into the leather. Opening the front cover, we see colorful marbleized endpapers, and the gold embossing continues on the leather on the inside as well, which is a nice touch. The verso endpaper is blank and is followed by two blank fly-leaves. There is a brief “Preface” on the recto of the fifth page which reads
Page six contains the edition information: “Published by / THE BENNETT BOOK STUDIOS, Inc. / New York City / EDITION LIMITED TO / 47 COPIES / This is copy No. Blank _____.” It is odd, and unfortunate, that it is not hand numbered by either the publisher or Bruno himself. Then comes the title page with a blank verso followed by the reason for this volume, the inlaid leaf itself—pages seventeen and eighteen from the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Following the leaf is Bruno’s essay, which begins on page ten and ends on page eighteen, after which come two more blank fly-leaves, a blank endpaper, and the marbled end-papers.
Before looking at our “precious leaf,” as Bruno calls it, here is a bit of background to get us up to speed. Up to this point in the poem, Whitman has introduced himself: “I celebrate myself, / and what I assume you shall assume. / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. // I loafe and invite my soul, / I lean and loafe at my ease . . . . observing a spear of summer grass.” He tells us he prefers to be outside breathing in the fresh air, as opposed to the stifling metaphorical “perfumes” on the crowded shelves inside.
Next, he invites us to hang out with him for a bit: “Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origins of all poems. . . .”) He tells us we will “no longer take things at second and third hand . . . . nor feed on the specters in books.” Instead, with the poet as our guide, we will learn to look through our own eyes and see the world afresh and think for ourselves.
As mentioned earlier, the things that make a leaf book a leaf book are that they contain an original type-written or hand-written page inlaid into the book and are accompanied by an explanatory essay. Bruno’s essay, which I honestly found rather off-putting the first time I read it, is titled “A Letter Written in Camden on the Twenty-Seventh Anniversary of His Death.” If you recall, ABC for Book Collectors, in discussing leaf books, says that “some suitable authority on the book would be asked to write an essay” to accompany the said leaf. I leave it up to you to discern whether or not you find Bruno a “suitable authority” on Whitman. That said, if we indeed take him at his word in his preface, he did say he wants as “many lovers of Whitman, rather than collectors of his first editions,” to be able to own a “precious Relique, an ever-living monument to the skill of his hands as well as the greatness of his mind.”
Bruno’s essay, as the title indicates, is not a scholarly tract, but rather a letter written directly to the deceased poet. It opens thusly:
To-day is the 27th anniversary of your death. I came here to worship at your shrine. I am a European, you must know, and reverence of our great writers and artists is bred in us, is part of our training. We love to visit the houses where genius lived, to see with our own eyes the places our great men loved.
Similar to the way in which Whitman opens later versions of “Song of Myself,” Bruno here seems to be working to establish his legitimacy for the task at hand. Likewise, he seems to be prefacing what is to come in the first half of the essay— America’s hostility toward art and literature, not to mention non-normative sexual behavior, particularly as leveled at Whitman, who wasn’t accepted by his own countryfolk until the 1920s and 30s when academics finally began looking at 19th century American literature as something of value. In hindsight, it is hard to believe that classics such as Moby-Dick, Walden, and Leaves of Grass went largely ignored on American shores when they first came out.
“Camden hasn’t changed much since you left,” Bruno continues. “The people among whom you lived are to-day the same as they were then: petty, mean, vain, unforgiving.” At this point, Bruno arrives on foot in Camden expecting to have no problem finding Whitman’s former house on Mickle Street. What he finds instead is that hardly anyone knows who Whitman was nor seems to even care. He finally gets ahold of someone who new Whitman personally, a Mr. William Keller. The first thing out of Keller’s mouth is: “This Whitman cult makes me sick. . . . His writings are not fit to be read in a respectable home. They corrupt the mind and are dangerous to the morals. We knew him well . . . we saw him daily and his disgraceful way of living was open town talk.” Keller continues by calling Whitman “an incorrigible beggar who lived very immorally,” alluding to Whitman’s homosexuality several more times—he was not “respectable”; he “corrupted” and “spoiled” young men; and “[f]ilth seemed to be always on his mind.”
One can’t help but ask, “what kind of memorial is this?” Why would Bruno include such nastiness and negativity in an essay that was supposed to memorialize America’s greatest poet? Did he include Keller’s vehement response about Whitman to help sell more copies of his leaf book? In America, as we all know, slander always sells. In a way, though, by including Mr. Keller’s thoughts, Bruno does actually give us an accurate, firsthand look into how many Americans felt about Whitman’s poetry, which they found vile due to its open embrace of sexuality. Ironically, the homoerotic overtones were missed by many. Conversely, though, Whitman was lauded by the handful of European men and women of letters lucky enough to get their hands on a copy of Leaves of Grass when the 1855 edition made its way across the pond, while on his home turf, he was derided by many reviewers of the book as a dangerous scoundrel and reprobate. Such is the burden of most groundbreaking art even to this day.
Still strolling around Camden, Bruno finds Whitman’s former house, which is now in “dreadful condition.” No commemorative plaque adorns the front of the house. No care has been taken to preserve and highlight the property where, to use Bruno’s words, “genius lived.” Instead, a taxi driver and his family of five live in the dilapidated house—plus four borders as well—where once the poet lived alone.
Luckily, Bruno finds someone in Camden who not only knew Whitman well, but who also liked him—the physician Alexander McAlister—who was daily at Whitman’s bedside at the end of his life. According to Dr. McAlister, who I quote here at length,
The magnificent personality of Walt Whitman and his general comradeship, inspired by his ingrained feelings and intuitive beliefs concerning the destiny of America, must certainly have impressed all who met him long before he was known as a poet. He lived a life so broad and noble that it will be more studied and emulated, and will sink deeper and deeper into the heart. The social, human world, through his aid, will reach a level hitherto unattained. The new life which he preached has not been even dreamed of yet, has not become yet an object of aspiration to us Americans. He has set the spark to the prepared fuel, the living glow has crept deeply into the dormant mass; even now tongues of flame begin to shoot forth. The longer Whitman is dead the better he will be known. He seems to me the typical American, the typical modern, the source and center of a new, spiritual aspiration, saner and manlier than any heretofore. Whitman thought that man has within him the element of the Divine, and that this element was capable of indefinite growth and expansion. He was the most democratic man that ever lived. Everybody was welcome to his house, everybody his equal, he was everybody's friend.
OK, so this sounds more legitimate in a commemorative essay. Perhaps Bruno’s task here was to show us both sides of the coin—the typical townie in Keller vs. the more enlightened doctor.
Courtesy of Library of Congress
Bruno ends his letter to Whitman at Harleigh Cemetery, where Whitman oversaw the building of his own substantial burial crypt:
I opened the heavy granite door, and stood for quite a while in the semi-darkness of your little house. I thought of you lying there on your bier, peaceful, indifferent, kind. Then I thought of the other monument you had built in words, a temple not made with hands, built for eternity. Always self-sufficing, walking your own path towards your own goal. No legend tells of you, of your life or achievement. You live in the hearts of thousands of Americans. Soon, very soon, perhaps, your name and America will be synonymous. Walt Whitman, we here on earth are awakening to your ideals of America.
I can’t think of a better way to end our time with Whitman’s single leaf of grass than that: “Walt Whitman, we here on earth are awakening to your ideals of America.” Awakening yes, but slowly still, to be sure.
V. Works Consulted
Borden, John. “Check-List of ‘Leaf Books.’” Quarterly News-Letter of the Book Club of California vol. xxvi, nos. 3 & 4, 1961.
Bruno, Guido. “A Letter Written in Camden on the Twenty-Seventh Anniversary of His Death.” One Precious Leaf from the First Edition of Leaves of Grass. New York: Bennett Book Studios, 1930.
---. Adventures in American Bookshops, Antique Stores and Auction Rooms. The Douglas Bookshop, 1922. Project Gutenberg eBook. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/56811/pg56811-images.html
Carter, John and Nicolas Baker. ABC for Book Collectors. 8th Edition. Oak Knoll Press,2013.
de Humel, Christopher and Joel Silver. Disbound and Dispersed: The Leaf Book Considered. The Caxton Club of Chicago, 2005.
Durand, Rose. “Guido Bruno: A Literary Vagabond.” Museum of the City of New York. 27 Feb. 2018. www.mcny.org/story/guido-bruno-literary-vagabond.
“Guido Bruno.” Moore123.com. https://moore123.com/2012/09/29/guido-bruno/
Haller, Margaret. The Book Collector’s Fact Book. Arco Publishing Co, Inc., 1976.
Keller, Elizabeth Leavitt. Walt Whitman in Mickle Street. J.J. Little & Ives, Co., 1921.
Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of California P, 1999.
Schmidgall, Gary. “‘Damn ‘em, God bless ‘em!’”: Whitman and Traubel on the Makers of Books.” pp.141-157.
Silver, Joel. “Leaf Books.” Fine Books & Collections. www2.finebooksmagazine.com/issue/0205/leaf_books.phtml
Wetzsteon, Ross. Republic of Dreams, Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia,1910-1960. Simon and Schuster, 2002.
Zweig, Paul. Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet. Basic Books, Inc., 1984.