Tane Poetry Library
Welcome to the Tane Poetry Library! This valuable collection is free and accessible to the general public thanks to generous donations from supporters of the Walt Whitman Initiative. Our growing library holds more than 600 volumes, including rare editions and facsimiles — check out some of our recent acquisitions in the Announcements below!
Curator
Jay Sherry
Assistant Curator
Marcela Homsany
Preview the Tane collection online and stop by the library upstairs at Fulton Stall Market, 91 South Street to read these leaves during summer open reading hours hosted by WWI intern Jane Lilly.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Rare books and materials acquisition!
Thanks to the generosity of Susan Tane and our own Ed Centeno, the Tane Poetry Library now holds a third edition of Leaves of Grass (1860) as well as a collection of fourteen valuable Whitman editions and facsimiles.
- Leaves of Grass. Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, 1860-61 (second printing, binding B)
- Leaves of Grass. Washington DC [London pirated edition], 1872 [but 1873]
- Leaves of Grass. Philadelphia: David McKay [c. 1900]
- Leaves of Grass (1855). Portland, ME: Thomas Bird Mosher and William Francis Gale, 1920
- Leaves of Grass (1855). NY: Doubleday, 1931
- Leaves of Grass (1855). NY: Columbia University Press for the Facsimile Text Society, 1939.
- Camden’s Compliment to Walt Whitman. Horace L. Traubel, ed. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1889.
- Good-Bye My Fancy. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1891
- Autobiographia. NY: Charles L. Webster & co., 1892
- Selected Poems. Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892.
- The Wound Dresser. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co,, 1898.
- Lafayette in Brooklyn. NY: George D. Smith, 1905
- Pictures: An Unpublished Poem of Walt Whitman. NY: The June House, 1927
- Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate. NY: Random House, 1929.
Donation of 100+ books!
This generous gift from a private collector is helping us to develop the Tane Poetry Library as a treasury for the people of Whitman’s New York!
A good number of the volumes in the collection were published or bought in the UK, where Whitman enjoyed a discipleship even during his lifetime. The donation includes: Leaves of Grass deathbed edition(s) and Complete Poetry and Prose (1888; the first book to include a photo as a frontispiece, thanks to new technology); November Boughs and After All No To Create Only, both produced by Walt during his own time; a signed edition of Whitman: The Poet Liberator of Woman; the precious Small Maynard reprinting of Walt and Pete’s “Calamus Letters”; a first edition of Rossetti’s Poems, the first Whitman collection published in the UK; Walt’s Blue Book (facsimile of his own annotated copy of LG 1860, used as his own resource while working on the next edition); an almost complete set of the Camden edition of Putnam’s 1902 Writings of WW; the Peter Pauper Press LG, illustrated by John Curry.
EVENTS
We host read-aloud youth programs, book making workshops for adults, and poetry discussions for all.
Click to view snapshots of past events!
The Tane Poetry Library opened its doors to the public at 91 South St. on September 30, 2022.
Watch the grand opening event!
Thank you to our partner Fulton Stall Market, a non-profit public farmer’s marketplace responsibly sourcing local products.