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To O G Hempstead & Son
407 Library street
Philadelphia
Dear Sirs:
Please treat with the bearer of this, Mr Horace Traubel,1 a personal friend of mine,
the same as you would with me, & consider him as my fully authorized agent in the
matter.2
Walt Whitman
328 Mickle st Camden
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Correspondent:
O.G. Hempstead & Son was a
customs brokerage house located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Notes
- 1. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919)
was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as
the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt
Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited
the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations,
which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914).
After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of
the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel,
see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 2. This note was written on a
blank envelope in response to a letter dated April 28,
1888 from Hempstead & Son notifying Whitman of the imminent
arrival of apparel sent to him by Lady Mount Temple (for more on this letter and
on Whitman and Traubel's dealings with O.G. Hempstead & Son, see Traubel,
With Walt Whitman in Camden, Wednesday, May 2, 1888). Whitman described Lady Mount Temple's
present as "a beautiful vest of knit stuff, wool, & silk" in his letter to
Robert Pearsall Smith of May 7, 1888. [back]