Printers of the Kosmos: Designing a Variorum of the First Leaves of Grass

This essay describes the editorial logic behind a recently released variorum of the 1855 edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. The history of the composition, printing, binding, distribution, and reading of this set of books informs the design and apparatus of the variorum, which attempts to represent something of the fundamental textual and material instability of the copies that make up the edition.