A century after his death, Walt Whitman is still celebrated as America's greatest poet. In this provocative edition, Whitman biographer Gary Schmidgall presents over 200 of Whitman's finest poems in an unprecedented new format. Unlike the countless available editions of the final authorised or "deathbed" LEAVES OF GRASS OF 1892, this collection focuses on the exuberant poems Whitman wrote during the creative and sexual prime of his life. These poems are faithfully presented as Whitman first gave them to the world - fearless, explicit and uncompromised - before he transformed himself into America's respectable, grandfatherly Good Gray Poet through 30 years of revision, self-censorship and suppression.