Dec 30
1867.
1
Geo. Routledge & sons2
416 Broome st
N. Y.
I have received the letter asking me to write for the "Broadway".
I do not write much, but your invitation is cordially appreciated,
and may serve as the spur toward something. I can at present only
briefly say that should I be able to prepare an article, or poem,
appropriate for the purposes of the magazine,
I will send it on—& that I shall surely try to do so.
My address is at the Attorney General's office here.
(New York house, please forward this to Mr. Edmund Routledge, London.)
Notes
- 1. This draft letter is
endorsed, "letter to Messrs. Routledge | Dec. 30, 1867. . . . I sent 'Whispers |
of Heavenly Death' | which they printed & paid handsomely for | in
gold." [back]
- 2. The publishers of the Broadway Annual (London) printed two sympathetic accounts
of Walt Whitman in 1867. W. Clark Russell termed him one of America's eminent
poets, and Robert Buchanan devoted an entire article to Walt Whitman. On
December 28, 1867, the New York office of the firm requested "one or two papers
or poems" (Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman,
1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden [1906–1996], 1:263). Walt
Whitman sent "Whispers of Heavenly Death," which
appeared in October 1868, and for which he received $50; Whitman
accepted this money as compensation in his February 19,
1868 letter to Routledge and Sons. [back]