In the 150 years since the first publication of Leaves of Grass, despite his late-life worries over the financial failure of his work and his then uncertain status in the hearts and minds of his fellow citizens, Whitman has certainly been absorbed into the canon of American and world literature and has come to be admired as the boldest innovator and perhaps the greatest poet in the literary history of the United States. This chapter gives a brief narrative of this reception, which has been largely a long-term success story. Whitman's status remains high, with new studies and editions of his work appearing monthly and appreciation for his poetry growing worldwide.

The first fifty years, 1855–1905

The success story starts with Emerson's famous letter. When Whitman sent Emerson a copy of the 1855 Leaves, the New England sage replied in a letter that greeted Whitman “at the beginning of a great career” and praised the power and candor of the work. Emerson was no doubt flattered by his obvious influence on the book, especially clear in the Preface and in the first poem, which would become “Song of Myself” – works that would always represent the farthest reaches of Whitman's Transcendentalism. “It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile & stingy nature, as if too much handiwork or too much lymph in the temperament were making our western wits fat & mean,” Emerson said of the book.