In 1855 Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass, the work which defined him as one of America`s most influential voices, and which he added to throughout his life. A collection of astonishing originality and intensity, it spoke of politics, sexual emancipation and what it meant to be an American. From the joyful `Song of Myself` and `I Sing the Body Electric` to the elegiac `When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom`d`, Whitman`s art fuses oratory, journalism and song in a vivid celebration of humanity.