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Walt Whitman to S. W. Green, [4(?) May 1876]

 loc.02239.001.jpg sample sent by S W Green  
 May 3 '761
S. W. Green Dear Sir:

Yours of 3d rec'd, with estimate, $157, for corrections (as per order & sample) and printing 600 copies 384 pages, on paper as per sample—said copies to be ready for binder on 24th May

This is to accept your estimate & to request & order the 600 copies—which I now do & shall expect the sheets ready on the 24th

Please make the corrections forthwith2 & send me proofs thereof here,—which will be promptly returned.

Walt Whitman  loc.02239.002.jpg May 4 '76  
 Order to S W Green  
 for corrections &  
 600 copies  
 Leaves of Grass

Correspondent:
S. W. Green was a large New York printing firm.


Notes

  • 1. This is a draft letter. On May 2, in a lost letter, Whitman asked Green to give him an estimate, which Green supplied on May 3 (Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). Probably Whitman accepted the offer on the following day. Green evidently delivered 600 copies to the binders on May 24, for in the Feinberg Collection, there is a check for $157 made out to Green on May 31. Green had printed some of Whitman's earlier works; see the letter from Whitman to Louisa Van Velsor Whitman of November 14, 1872. [back]
  • 2. In the second printing of the 1876 Leaves of Grass intercalations included: "As in a Swoon," "The Beauty of the Ship," "When the Full-Grown Poet Came," and "After an Interval." [back]
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