431 Stevens Street
Camden New Jersey
June 26 '82
My dear friend1—
I to-day mail you a copy of "Leaves of Grass" as a little gift & testimonial of
thanks. Please send me word if it is safely delivered. I sent you a little package
of printed sheets last week by mail.
Walt Whitman
Notes
- 1. Probably Whitman met
George Chainey, the publisher of This World (Boston), in
Boston in 1881. On December 22, 1881, the poet sent one of Chainey's sermons to
Susan Stafford (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of
the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington,
D.C.). Chainey printed on June 17, 1882, "Keep Off the Grass," a lecture which
he had delivered on June 11, as well as "To a Common Prostitute." Chainey
printed Whitman's letter and one from O'Connor on July 1. Interestingly,
O'Connor deplored Chainey's stupidity in a letter to Whitman on July 13, although he had been furnishing Chainey
with information; see Chainey's letter to O'Connor, dated July 11 (Trent
Collection, Duke University). Chainey discussed the censorship on July 1, July
6, and November 4; see Roger Asselineau, L'Évolution de Walt
Whitman (1955), 250–251n. Chainey lectured on Leaves of Grass in 1884 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, June 23). [back]