James Daugherty, the well-known painter, illustrator, and writer of children's books, first read Walt Whitman as a sixteen-year-old student at the London School of Art. "One day," he says, "there appeared at the school a young Californian with a copy of Leaves of Grass in his pocket. I had never read a line of it. Leaves of Grass got under my skin and into my bones. Was this really my America, this splendor of democracy, this new world of affirmation and fraternity and hope? For the first time I felt the meaning and power of that majestic word 'America.' I must return to my country at once and forever."
Mr. Daugherty did return to his own country "at once and forever." And through a lifetime career as a creative artist, the magnificent energy and vigor of his work has seemed to embody the courage and joy and immense vitality which fired Whitman's message. Now, in this handsomely illustrated introduction to Whitman's writings, he pays tribute to the poet whose vision has profoundly influenced his own own life and work.
The selections from Leaves of Grass, Democratic Vistas, Specimen Days, and from Whitman's writings about Lincoln are, as Mr. Daugherty states, "only samples to invite and tempt you to the great adventure of reading all Whitman's poems and prose. You will of course choose and reject, agree and disagree with his tumultuous philosophies; but as you read and reread them your thoughts about America will surely expand, for they do what Emily Dickinson calls 'joggle the mind' and expand the spirit toward wider horizons along new and unexplored paths, and I thing this is good in a world rushing to swiftly toward unlimited possibilities."
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