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Literary Manuscripts

Integrated Catalog of Walt Whitman's Literary Manuscripts

Elias Hicks Notes (Such As They Are)

  • Whitman Archive Title: The village of Jericho
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.06029
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: OV 11
  • Folder: 1888, "Elias Hicks"
  • Series: Oversize
  • Date: between 1858 and 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This one-page prose draft regarding the birthplace of Elias Hicks was likely one of the manuscripts from which Whitman fashioned his 1888 essay "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," first published in November Boughs and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). The reference to Elias Hicks's daughter Martha Hicks Aldrich as "still living" suggests that Whitman began writing this manuscript before 1862, the year of Martha's death. The reference, in the revision of this passage, to her death "a year or two ago," "about 1863," would seem to indicate that at least that portion of the manuscript was written around 1865. Whitman planned to write an essay about Elias Hicks for many years. While finishing preparations for the printing of November Boughs, Whitman told Horace Traubel, "Some of these bits were written as many as thirty years ago. Some of them I have written within the past year. They are a miscellaneous lot but they all belong in the same stream." (See Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, 2: 42.) The present manuscript is stored together with many other manuscripts on the topics of Elias Hicks and Quakerism. Those that directly contributed to the published essay are described separately. Those whose relationship to the published essay are unclear are not included at this stage of our work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: an ardent temperament
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.06025
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: OV 11
  • Folder: 1888, "Elias Hicks"
  • Series: Oversize
  • Date: between 1858 and 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Two manuscript leaves pasted to a backing scrap to create a continuous inscribed surface. The notes here about Elias Hicks's early life probably contributed to Whitman's 1888 essay "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," first published in November Boughs and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). Whitman planned to write an essay about Elias Hicks for many years. While finishing preparations for the printing of November Boughs, Whitman told Horace Traubel, "Some of these bits were written as many as thirty years ago. Some of them I have written within the past year. They are a miscellaneous lot but they all belong in the same stream." (See Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, 2: 42.) The present manuscript is stored together with many other manuscripts on the topics of Elias Hicks and Quakerism. Those that directly contributed to the published essay are described separately. Those whose relationship to the published essay are unclear are not included at this stage of our work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Western Nicknames
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.07052
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: 39
  • Folder: 1847-1869, words and nicknames
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: about 1885
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: currently unavailable
  • Content: On one side of the manuscript leaf are notes about demonyms for the people of various places in North America. Whitman made use of this list in his essay "Slang in America," which was first published in the November 1885 issue of The North American Review and later collected in November Boughs (1888) and Complete Prose Works (1892). The other side, which has been cancelled, contains a partial draft of an article written in response to an unidentified author who had apparently found fault with American politics and newspaper literature. It is unknown whether the writing on this side led to publication. No images of this item are currently available.

  • Whitman Archive Title: I am describing
  • Whitman Archive ID: prc.00070
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Private Collection of Kendall Reed
  • Date: 1870–1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: currently unavailable
  • Content: A rough draft fragment of Whitman's essay on Elias Hicks, first published in November Boughs (1888) as "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks." An image of the verso is currently unavailale.

  • Whitman Archive Title: The mob, the trial of Warren Hastings
  • Whitman Archive ID: duk.00141
  • Repository ID: MS q 36
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
  • Date: 1870-1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A manuscript with heavily-edited draft lines from Whitman's essay "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," which first appeared in November Boughs in 1888. The essay was also included in Complete Prose Works in 1892. Hicks (1748-1830) was a Quaker preacher and abolitionist who Whitman greatly admired.

  • Whitman Archive Title: On the Religion
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.05323
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Library of Congress
  • Box: 2
  • Folder: on religion
  • Series: Notes and Memoranda
  • Date: 1870-1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: The spirit of this note made it into the "Lingering Note" at the end of Whitman's essay "Elias Hicks, Notes (such as they are)" in November Boughs (1888). Apparently, Whitman intended to write a longer essay which did not allude to Hicks. Grier dates this scrap from the 1870s because of the steadiness of the handwriting ( Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press], 6, 2101).



  • Whitman Archive Title: Hicks (1748–1830)
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.03677
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Series: Notes and Notebooks
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Notes on the life dates of various famous figures. Whitman used this information for "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," an essay that was first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). The fragmentary names at the top of the list are those of Thomas Jefferson and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Whitman planned to write an essay about Elias Hicks for many years. While finishing preparations for the printing of November Boughs, Whitman told Horace Traubel, "Some of these bits were written as many as thirty years ago. Some of them I have written within the past year. They are a miscellaneous lot but they all belong in the same stream." (See Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, 2: 42.) The present manuscript is stored together with many other manuscripts on the topics of Elias Hicks and Quakerism. Those that directly contributed to the published essay are described separately. Those whose relationship to the published essay are unclear are not included at this stage of our work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: consent of all the other sects
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.06038
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: OV 11
  • Folder: 1888, "Elias Hicks"
  • Series: Oversize
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: One page of a late draft, probably the printer's copy, of the essay "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," which was first published in November Bough s (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). Whitman planned to write an essay about Elias Hicks for many years. While finishing preparations for the printing of November Boughs, Whitman told Horace Traubel, "Some of these bits were written as many as thirty years ago. Some of them I have written within the past year. They are a miscellaneous lot but they all belong in the same stream." (See Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, 2: 42.) The present manuscript is stored together with many other manuscripts on the topics of Elias Hicks and Quakerism. Those that directly contributed to the published essay are described separately. Those whose relationship to the published essay are unclear are not included at this stage of our work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: The division took place
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.06070
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: OV 11
  • Folder: 1888, "Elias Hicks"
  • Series: Oversize
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: The writing on this small scrap, regarding the so-called "Hicksite Separation" within the Religious Society of Friends, forms part of a note, headed "Note.—The Separation," included in the essay "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks." This essay was first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). Whitman planned to write an essay about Elias Hicks for many years. While finishing preparations for the printing of November Boughs, Whitman told Horace Traubel, "Some of these bits were written as many as thirty years ago. Some of them I have written within the past year. They are a miscellaneous lot but they all belong in the same stream." (See Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, 2: 42.) The present manuscript is stored together with many other manuscripts on the topics of Elias Hicks and Quakerism. Those that directly contributed to the published essay are described separately. Those whose relationship to the published essay are unclear are not included at this stage of our work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: The Hicksite separation appears
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.06058
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: OV 11
  • Folder: 1888, "Elias Hicks"
  • Series: Oversize
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: The information on this small scrap was used for a note, headed "Note.—The Separation," included in the essay "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks." This essay was first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). Whitman planned to write an essay about Elias Hicks for many years. While finishing preparations for the printing of November Boughs, Whitman told Horace Traubel, "Some of these bits were written as many as thirty years ago. Some of them I have written within the past year. They are a miscellaneous lot but they all belong in the same stream." (See Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, 2: 42.) The present manuscript is stored together with many other manuscripts on the topics of Elias Hicks and Quakerism. Those that directly contributed to the published essay are described separately. Those whose relationship to the published essay are unclear are not included at this stage of our work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: Instructive, recurring back
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.06084
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: OV 11
  • Folder: 1888, "Elias Hicks"
  • Series: Oversize
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This manuscript about the life of George Fox, written in ink with some corrections in pencil, appears to be a draft introduction for the section headed "George Fox (and Shakspere)" in the essay "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks." This essay was first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). Whitman abandoned the approach to his topic that is suggested in the first paragraph of the manuscript, but the paragraph indicated by the pointing hand, at the bottom of the manuscript, contains the kernel of a key paragraph in the published version. Whitman planned to write an essay about Elias Hicks for many years. While finishing preparations for the printing of November Boughs, Whitman told Horace Traubel, "Some of these bits were written as many as thirty years ago. Some of them I have written within the past year. They are a miscellaneous lot but they all belong in the same stream." (See Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, 2: 42.) The present manuscript is stored together with many other manuscripts on the topics of Elias Hicks and Quakerism. Those that directly contributed to the published essay are described separately. Those whose relationship to the published essay are unclear are not included at this stage of our work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: 1645–6
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.06010
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: OV 11
  • Folder: 1888, "Elias Hicks"
  • Series: Oversize
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: These notes are based on Whitman's reading of the third volume of George L. Craik and Charles Macfarlane's The Pictorial History of England (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1848). He incorporated some of this information into his essay "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," which was first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). Whitman planned to write an essay about Elias Hicks for many years. While finishing preparations for the printing of November Boughs, Whitman told Horace Traubel, "Some of these bits were written as many as thirty years ago. Some of them I have written within the past year. They are a miscellaneous lot but they all belong in the same stream." (See Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, 2: 42.) The present manuscript is stored together with many other manuscripts on the topics of Elias Hicks and Quakerism. Those that directly contributed to the published essay are described separately. Those whose relationship to the published essay are unclear are not included at this stage of our work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: opening of George Fox
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.06018
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839-1919, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
  • Box: OV 11
  • Folder: 1888, "Elias Hicks"
  • Series: Oversize
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A one-page draft fragment, heavily revised, related to the "George Fox (and Shakspere)" section of Whitman's 1888 essay "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," first published in November Boughs and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). Whitman planned to write an essay about Elias Hicks for many years. While finishing preparations for the printing of November Boughs, Whitman told Horace Traubel, "Some of these bits were written as many as thirty years ago. Some of them I have written within the past year. They are a miscellaneous lot but they all belong in the same stream." (See Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, 2: 42.) The present manuscript is stored together with many other manuscripts on the topics of Elias Hicks and Quakerism. Those that directly contributed to the published essay are described separately. Those whose relationship to the published essay are unclear are not included at this stage of our work.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Often too in real size and value]
  • Whitman Archive ID: rml.00001
  • Repository ID: AMs 1282/30
  • Repository: Catalog of a Walt Whitman Literary Manuscript in the Rosenbach Museum and Library
  • Repository Title: Often too in real size and value
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: A heavily revised and struck through prose draft fragment, portions of which appeared in the last paragraph of "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," November Boughs (1888) before being collected under the same title in Complete Prose (1892).

  • Whitman Archive Title: The Conscience - the moral one,
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00208
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 3
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: The Conscience - the moral one,
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1
  • Content: This manuscript fragment regarding the importance of the spiritual aspect of human consciousness is probably part of a draft of "A Lingering Note" in "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks." The essay was first published in November Boughs (1888). The leaf has been pasted to a backing sheet, rendering the verso inaccessible.

  • Whitman Archive Title: [for the Notes]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00221
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 5
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: For the notes…
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: This short note refers to a passage in the third edition of Edward FitzGerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia, published in 1872. Whitman quotes stanza 66 of FitzGerald's work in his essay "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," which was first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1892). He had apparently intended to include, as a footnote to his quotation, the next three stanzas of the Rubáiyát, but these do not appear in the article as it was printed.



  • Whitman Archive Title: [even in the old attack]
  • Whitman Archive ID: tex.00213
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
  • Box: 1
  • Folder: 4
  • Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
  • Repository Title: Even in the old attack and 6th or 7th recurrence…
  • Date: about 1888
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: Heavily corrected draft of a phrase that appears at the end of the "Prefatory Note" section of "Notes (such as they are) founded on Elias Hicks," an essay first published in November Boughs (1888) and later reprinted in Complete Prose Works (1891–1892). The draft is written on what was apparently a book wrapper. The printed text on the inside of the wrapper is from the Seventh Annual Report of the Dante Society, which was dated May 15, 1888.






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