As Malcolm Cowley says in his Introduction, the first edition of Leaves of Grass "might be called the buried masterpiece of American writing,"for it exhibits "Whitman at his best, Whitman at his freshest in vision and boldest in language, Whitman trasnformed by a new experience." Cowley has taken the first edition from its narrow circulation among scholars, faithfully edited it, added his own Introduction and Whitmanïs original Introduction which never appeared in any other edition during Whitmanïs life , and returned it to the common readership for whom the great poet intended it.