In 1852 young Walt Whitman-a down-on-his-luck housebuilder in Brooklyn-was hard at work writing two books. One would become one of the most famous volumes of poetry in American history a free-verse revelation beloved the world over <i>Leaves of Grass</i>. The other a novel would be published under a pseudonym and serialized in a newspaper. A short rollicking story of orphanhood avarice and adventure in New York City <i>Life and Adventures of Jack Engle</i> appeared to little fanfare.<br> <br>Then it disappeared.<br> <br>No one laid eyes on it until 2016 when literary scholar Zachary Turpin University of Houston followed a paper trail deep into the Library of Congress where the sole surviving copy of <i>Jack Engle</i> has lain waiting for generations. Now after more than 160 years the University of Iowa Press is honored to reprint this lost work restoring a missing piece of American literature by one of the world's greatest authors written as he verged on immortality.<br><br><br><b>Read by Jon Hamm with an afterword written and read by Zachary Turpin</b>