This week (May 29 – June 4) in literary history – Author T.H. White was born (May 29, 1906); Playwright Christopher Marlowe was killed in a pub fight (May 30, 1593); Walt Whitman was born (May 31, 1819); Samuel Taylor Coleridge published “The Friend” (June 1, 1809); Allen Ginsberg wrote the poem “Lysergic Acid” (June 2, 1959); Western author Larry McMurtry was born (June 3, 1936); Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was published (June 4, 1940)

Highlighted story of the week –

On May 31, 1819, poet Walt Whitman was born in West Hills, Long Island, New York. Although Whitman loved music and books, he left school at the age of 14 to become a journeyman printer. Later, he worked as a teacher, journalist, editor, carpenter, and held various other jobs to support his writing. In 1855, he self-published a slim volume of poems called Leaves of Grass, which carried his picture but not his name. With this book, Whitman hoped to become a truly “American” poet, as envisioned in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “The Poet” (1843).

Whitman spent much time in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Long Island, attending cultural events, taking long walks, and sometimes riding on coaches and ferries as an excuse to talk with people. In 1856, the second edition of Leaves of Grass included his “Sundown Poem,” later called “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.”

In 1862, Whitman’s brother was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg, and Whitman went to care for him. He spent the rest of the war comforting both Union and Confederate soldiers. His poem “Oh Captain, My Captain,” mourned Lincoln’s assassination. Whitman worked for several government departments after the war until he suffered a stroke in 1873. He spent the remainder of his life in Camden, New Jersey, and continued to issue revised editions of Leaves of Grass until shortly before his death on March 26, 1892. He was buried at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden.

Check back every Friday for a new installment of “This Week in Literary History.”

Michael Thomas Barry is the author of six nonfiction books that includes the award winning Literary Legends of the British Isles and America’s Literary Legends.