Camden New Jersey
March 7 '821
I am not afraid of the District Attorney's threat—it quite certainly could not
amount to any thing—but I want you to be satisfied, to continue as publishers
of the book (& I had already thought favorably of some such brief
cancellation.)
Yes, under the circumstances I am willing to make a revision & cancellation in
the pages alluded to—wouldn't be more than half a dozen anyhow—perhaps
indeed about ten lines to be left out, & half a dozen words or phrases.2
Have just returned from a fortnight down in the Jersey woods,3 & find your letter—
Walt Whitman
Notes
- 1. According to Whitman's
Commonplace Book, this communication was sent on March 8 (Charles E. Feinberg
Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.). [back]
- 2. On March 1, 1882, Oliver
Stevens, District Attorney in Boston, wrote to Osgood & Co., the publishers
of the newest edition of Leaves of Grass: "We are of the
opinion that this book is such a book as brings it within the provisions of the
Public Statutes respecting obscene literature and suggest the propriety of
withdrawing the same from circulation and suppressing the editions thereof." In
transmitting Stevens's letter to Whitman on March
4, the firm asked Whitman's "consent to the withdrawal of the present
edition and the substitution of an edition lacking the obnoxious
features." [back]
- 3. Whitman was with the
Staffords from February 16 to March 6 (Whitman's Commonplace Book). [back]