[Whitman referred to "My Long Island Antecedents"
and to a favorable review of Leaves of Grass in the
Boston Herald, which he included in the letter. Ostensibly by Sylvester Baxter, the review was partly drafted by Whitman himself.]1
Notes
- 1. The summary of the letter
is drawn from a catalog put out by the American Art Association for a sale on
January 31, 1939. The location of this manuscript is presently unknown. Whitman
sent "My Long Island Antecedents" to The North American
Review on October 29, but it was returned (Whitman's Commonplace Book,
Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919,
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). For a discussion of the Baxter-Whitman
co-authored review, see Kenneth M. Price and Janel Cayer, "'It might be us
speaking instead of him!': Individuality, Collaboration, and the Networked
Forces Contributing to 'Whitman,'" Walt Whitman Quarterly
Review 33 (2015): 114–124. [back]