The Olden Time" in THE NEW YORK MIRROR. A Weekly Journal Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts. Volume XII : 5 July 1834 -- 27 June 1835

New York: Wilson & Company, 1834 - 1835. First Edition. Hardcover. The last issue missing one leaf but otherwise complete with the addition of a loose 1835 issue laid in. Little foxing but some dampstaining, occasionally heavy, but with little effect on the page with Whitman's piece. A few pages frayed at the edges. Front cover a little loose but binding is sound. Very Good. Folio (10-1/2" x 14-1/4") bound in contemporary sheep-backed marbled boards with the gilt-lettered red morocco ownership label of Maria Youngs on the front cover; 416 pages including index. Includes the first printing in the 29 November 1834 issue of "The Olden Time," signed "W," THE FIRST PUBLISHED PIECE BY WALT WHITMAN still extant, published when he was 15 years old. Not in Myerson, though he refers to a possible Whitman work in THE MIRROR in 1835 as not seen (Myerson I3). In the three-paragraph piece Whitman talks about how though New York City may feel old and "civilized," there were still likely people around who "conversed with men who once saw the present great metropolitan city as a little dorp or village." He gives examples of two men who died in the mid-1700s--a Negro Harry and John Crockeser--who must have spoken to some still alive when he wrote the piece: "How these very aged persons serve as counters to diminish time, and to seem to draw all the mighty past, so seemingly long, into the compass of but two or three lives!" THE MIRROR was an 8-page weekly containing: A piece of music with words and notes on the last page of each issue; book reviews; literary criticism; poetry; letters from abroad; medicine; city improvements; fine arts; humor; New York theater; etc. Other articles on New York University; Cure of an Opium-Eater; Wilson, the Ornithologist; the Witches of Lancashire of 1612; Charles Lamb on Modern Gallantry; English Writers of America by Washington Irving; two poems by William Cullen Bryant; and more. Illustrated an engraved title page, text engravings and 3 full-page plates: the presidents of the United States, a view of Newburgh, NY, and "A Scene in the Highlands, NY."