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Walt Whitman to Roden Noel, 29 June 1886

 loc.02911.002_large.jpg

Thanks for your good "Essays" which came safely this forenoon—thanks for your warm & affectionate words ab't me2—I am living here quite disabled & paralyzed, but in good heart & able to read & write—

—Is this the right address?

Walt Whitman  loc.02911.001_large.jpg

Correspondent:
Roden Noel (1834–1894) was an English poet. Noel came from an aristocratic English family, and in his youth developed socialist sympathies. He was a close friend of the poet and influential critic Robert Buchanan, and it may have been through Buchanan that Noel first encountered Leaves of Grass in 1871 (the same year that he first wrote to Whitman). In 1871, Noel published an essay entitled "A Study of Walt Whitman" in The Dark Blue (Harold Blodgett, Walt Whitman in England [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1934], 147–149).


Notes

  • 1. This postal card is addressed: Roden Noel | 57 Anesley Park | London s.e. | England. It is postmarked: CAMDEN | JUN | 29 | 6 PM | N.J. Whitman crossed out his first attempt to address the card. [back]
  • 2. See Noel's letter to Whitman of May 16, 1886. [back]
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