431 Stevens st.
cor West.
Camden,
N. Jersey, Dec. 12.
Dr. Holland,1
Dear Sir,
Would these pieces—or either of them—be available for the Magazine? The price
is $50—(40 for the first—10 for the other.) I have had them put in type for
correctness & my private use.
Notes
- 1. Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–1881),
mentioned pseudonymously as Timothy Titcomb in Whitman's September 27, 1867 letter to William D. O'Connor, was an editor of
the Springfield Republican from 1850 to 1862, and author
of Titcomb's Letters to Young People, Simple and Married
(New York: C. Scribner, 1858). While he was editor of Scribner's Monthly (1870–1881), Whitman submitted poems to him.
At this time Holland was also editor of the Century
Magazine. On two occasions Whitman recalled that he had sent poems to
Holland at the suggestion of John Swinton (Horace Traubel, ed., With Walt Whitman in Camden [1906–1996], 1:184; 4:326–327). This letter was probably written in 1875, since one
of the poems was "Eidólons," which appeared in the New York Tribune on February 19,
1876. The following year, Holland issued a hostile criticism in the
May 1876 issue of Scribner's Monthly, 12 (1876),
123–125. Holland's lengthy (lost) reply "was offensive, low, bitter,
inexcusable" (Horace Traubel, ed., With Walt Whitman in
Camden [1906–1996], 3:327). In an interview in 1879, Whitman complained that many
American magazines were "in the hands of old fogies like Holland or fops like
Howells" (American Literature, 14 [1942–43],
145–146). [back]