numerous and considerable variations from all its precursors; evidencing
once again that Whitman is by no means the rough-and-ready writer,
panoplied in rude art and egotistic self-sufficiency, that many people
suppose him to be. Even since this issue, the book has been slightly
revised by its author's own hand, with a special view to possible English
circulation. The copy so revised has reached me (through the liberal and
friendly hands of Mr. Conway) after my selection had already been decided
on; and the few departures from the last printed text which might on
comparison be found in the present volume are due to my having had the
advantage of following this revised copy. In all other respects I have felt
bound to reproduce the last edition, without so much as considering whether
here and there I might personally prefer the readings of the earlier
issues.

The selection here offered to the English reader contains a little less
than half the entire bulk of Whitman's poetry. My choice has proceeded upon
two simple rules: first, to omit entirely every poem which could with any
tolerable fairness be deemed offensive to the feelings of morals or
propriety in this peculiarly nervous age; and, second, to include every
remaining poem which appeared to me of conspicuous beauty or interest. I
have also inserted the very remarkable prose preface which Whitman printed
in the original edition of _Leaves of Grass_, an edition that has become a
literary rarity. This preface has not been reproduced in any later
publication, although its materials have to some extent been worked up into
poems of a subsequent date.[6] From this prose composition, contrary to
what has been my rule with any of the poems, it has appeared to me
permissible to omit two or three short phrases which would have shocked
ordinary readers, and the retention of which, had I held it obligatory,
would have entailed the exclusion of the preface itself as a whole.