With Walt Whitman in Camden, July 7, 1890-February 10, 1891

This is the seventh volume of the daily record, over the last four years of Walt Whitman s life, of his conversations with his young friend and literary executor Horace Traubel.Traubel managed Whitman s literary and personal affairs and assisted him in the preparation for publication of the final (Deathbed) edition of "Leaves of Grass. "Each evening he wrote down a brief description of how Whitman appeared to him that day and then recorded all the snatches of conversation that he remembered.The sheer consistency of Traubel s effort is perhaps without precedent in all of literature. His narrative is not only a record of Whitman s anecdotes and conversation on a wide variety of topics but also the opportunity to witness, as Traubel witnessed, a personal life. These entries offer a picture of Walt Whitman with all his keen insights, day-to-day labors, and physical troubles that is more complete and revealing than any of the numerous studies written on the man."