A friend called the other day from a bench in New York’s Hudson Valley to report that the weather was, at last, perfect for reading outside. As his first book of spring, he’d chosen Walt Whitman’s 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. It took a few days for his good weather to reach where we are, but today has been, at last, an outdoor reading day. Not least of the pleasures of reading outside is one of the most prosaic: the light’s really good. No pettifoggery with lampshades or lightbulbs required.

Yes, as I say, prosaic stuff, whereas Whitman’s 1855 version of the poem remains anything but. For those of you properly afraid of the great outdoors, preferring the safety of your basement apartments to the terrors of burgeoning nature, why not head over to the Whitman Archive and read a scanned version of a first edition of Whitman’s enduring poem. You’ll find it here, whereas you’ll find me here (or somewhere like it), weekend reading.