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Francis Viele-Griffin to Walt Whitman, 26 April 1888

About This Item

  • Title: Francis Viele-Griffin to Walt Whitman, 26 April 1888
  • Date: April 26, 1888
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman | Francis Viele-Griffin
  • Whitman Archive ID: med.00825
  • Source: The location of this manuscript is unknown. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, With Walt Whitman in Camden, ed. Horace Traubel (Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1906), 119. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Contributors to digital file: Alex Ashland Ian Faith Stefan Schöberlein Stephanie Blalock
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt and Francis Viele-Griffin. "Francis Viele-Griffin to Walt Whitman, 26 April 1888." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 26 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: med.00825.xml (TEI)
15 Quai de Bourbon. Paris, April 26, 1888. Sir and Dear Poet,

In admiration of some of your poems, which I read in an edition, ridiculously "expurgated," published by Chatto & Windus,1 in London, I feel constrained to have the Parisian people share the estimation in which I hold your high lyrical talent.

Would it be too much to ask of you that you indicate the volume (the edition) which you would prefer having rendered in the French? My friend, Jules Laforgue2 (who died only too prematurely) has already given to the public two of your poems, and the reception they met with seems to presage a new victory for your works.

In expectation of your kind reply, Sir and dear poet, permit me to assure you of my sympathy in art and of my profound admiration.

Francis Viele-Griffin.

Correspondent:
Francis Vielé-Griffin (1864–1937) was an American-born French Symbolist poet. For more on Vielé-Griffin, see Reinhard Kuhn, The Return to Reality: A Study of Francis Vielé-Griffin (Paris: Librairie Minard, 1962).

Notes

  • 1. In 1886, the London publisher Chatto & Windus printed the second edition of William Michael Rossetti's Poems by Walt Whitman. [back]
  • 2. Jules Laforgue (1860–1887) was a French-Uruguayan Symbolist poet. For more on Laforgue, see Michael Collie, Jules Laforgue (London: Athlone Press, 1977). [back]
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