Walt Whitman to Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta, 13 May 1871

About This Item

Title: Walt Whitman to Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta, 13 May 1871
Date: May 13, 1871
Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00105
Source: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 121. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta, 13 May 1871." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 21 November 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: yal.00105.xml (TEI)

Department of Justice Washington. May 13, 1871. Mrs. Botta, My dear Madam,1

In answer to your request of some days since, I send you the MS. of a small piece I have written, to be printed forthwith in the June Galaxy.2

According to your request, I also send a picture.

Walt Whitman

1. Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta (1815–1891) was a teacher, a poet, and a sculptor. Her "literary" evenings in New York are mentioned in Bayard Taylor's John Godfrey's Fortunes. According to the Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta (1894), 14, Poe gave his first public reading of "The Raven" at her home. Her evaluation of Walt Whitman's poetry appeared in her often reprinted Handbook of Universal Literature (1885 ed.), 535: "Walt Whitman…writes with great force, originality, and sympathy with all forms of struggle and suffering, but with utter contempt for conventionalities and for the acknowledged limits of true art." [back]
2. On April 10, 1871, Francis P. Church had accepted "O Star of France" for the June issue of the Galaxy. [back]