As Malcolm Cowley mentions in his introduction, the first edition of Leaves of Grass could be called the "buried masterpiece of American literature," as it presents "Whitman at his best, Whitman with his freshest vision and his boldest language, Whitman transformed by a new experience." Mr. Cowley has taken the first edition out of its limited circulation among scholars, faithfully edited it, added his own introduction and Whitman's original introduction (which did not appear in any other edition during Whitman's lifetime), and returned it to the general reading public to whom the great poet truly speaks.