The first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, Leaves of Grass, is published in Brooklyn.

Walter Whitman Jr. was an American poet, essayist, and journalist; he also wrote two novels. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and world literature. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described by some as obscene for its overt sensuality.

Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by American poet Walt Whitman. After self-publishing it in 1855, he spent most of his professional life writing, revising, and expanding the collection until his death in 1892. Either six or nine separate editions of the book were produced, depending on how one defines a new edition. The continual modifications to Leaves of Grass resulted in vastly different copies of it circulating in Whitman's lifetime. The first edition was a slim tract of twelve poems, and the last was a compilation of over 400 poems.

Brooklyn is the most populous of the five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located at the westernmost end of Long Island and formerly an independent city, Brooklyn shares a land border with the borough and county of Queens. It has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan, across the East River, and is connected to Staten Island by way of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.