The text of this facsimile of the first edition of Leaves of Grass, published by Whitman in Brooklyn in 1855, is reproduced from a copy in the Library of Yale University. The eight pages of first comments and reviews, added to later copies of the first edition by Whitman and containing a review in The American Phrenological Journal specifically attributed to the poet himself, are from a copy in the collection of The Pierpont Morgan Library. The printed text of the letter Emerson sent to Whitman, a facsimile of one the poet had printed and pasted in the front of a few copies, is from the Library of Brown University. The lettering and ornamentation on the binding have been copied from first editions in the New York Public Library and the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Grateful acknowledgment is here made to these libraries for granting permission, and for the generous cooperation that has made this facsimile possible.