Walt Whitman to Fanny R. Ritter, 24 February 1879

About This Item

Title: Walt Whitman to Fanny R. Ritter, 24 February 1879
Date: February 24, 1879
Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Whitman Archive ID: upa.00197
Source: Walt Whitman Collection, 1842–1957, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania. Transcript by Mrs. Frederic R. Ritter, inscribed on the verso of a letter from Walt Whitman to Fanny Ritter composed on February 7, 1880. At the top of her transcript Ritter wrote: "Extracted the following, to give to a friend of mother's as an autograph.". The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Ted Genoways (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004), 55. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alicia Bones Nima Najafi Kianfar Eder Jaramillo Nicole Gray
Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to Fanny R. Ritter, 24 February 1879." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 14 November 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: upa.00197.xml (TEI)

I think of coming your way next summer, and I should then visit you (sending you word beforehand)—I am writing this in the winter sunshine1 and send my warmest remembrance to you and Professor.2

Walt Whitman

Notes

1. On January 26, 1879, the Philadelphia Times published Whitman's article "Winter Sunshine. A Trip from Camden to the Coast." The pun on the title in this brief note would seem to indicate that this is the lost letter Whitman wrote to Ritter noted in his Daybooks and Notebooks, ed. William White (New York: New York University Press, 1978) for February 24, 1879, and that he enclosed a copy of the article. [back]
2. Frédéric Louis Ritter, composer and professor at Vassar College, who set Whitman's "Two Veterans" to music in 1880. [back]