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328 Mickle Street
Camden New Jersey1
April 18 1887>
Dear Sir
Yours of 16th with $250 (for my lecture2 of Thursday night afternoon preceding) safely
rec'd—& this is the receipt. Thanks—
Walt Whitman
will write you again in a day or two
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Correspondent:
James Burton Pond (1838–1903)
was a famous lecture-manager and printer. He was also awarded the Medal of Honor
for his services in the Civil War. In his 1900 autobiography Eccentricities of Genius (G. W. Dillingham Co: New York), he writes of
Whitman: "Whitman gave a few readings under my management during his life. They
were mostly testimonials from friends, and benefits given in the theatres of New
York City"; Pond concludes with an anecdote about the poet's meeting with Sir
Edwin Arnold (497–501).
Notes
- 1. This postal card is
addressed: Major James B. Pond | Everett House | cor: 4th Av: & 17th Street
| New York City. It is postmarked: Camden N.J. | Apr 18 | 12 M | 87; P O |
4–18–87 | 5–1p | N.Y.; P O | 4–18–87 | [illegible] | [illegible]. [back]
- 2. Whitman is referring to his
lecture entitled "The Death of Abraham Lincoln," which he delivered in New York
City on Thursday, April 14, 1887. He first delivered this lecture in New York in
1879 and would deliver it at least eight other times over the succeeding years,
delivering it for the last time on April 15, 1890. He had published a version of
the lecture as "Death of Abraham Lincoln" in Specimen
Days (1882–83). For more on the lecture, see Larry D. Griffin,
"'Death of Abraham Lincoln,'" Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, ed. (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998), 169–170. [back]