Content:
A small scrap on which Whitman has written "Specimen Days" at the top in red ink. The manuscript contains a short note about Giulia Grisi and Giuseppe Mario, two opera singers who Whitman saw in New York in the 1850s, and who Whitman mentions in the section of
Specimen Days
entitled "Plays and Operas too." Edward Grier dates the manuscript, based on the paper and ink, to around 1880 (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984] 3:1064). The manuscript is pasted to a backing sheet, making the verso inaccessible.
Content:
This item refers to the Italian tenor Giovanni Matteo Mario's death on
December
11,1883. Whitman referred to Mario in
Specimen Days & Collect
, published in 1882-1883,
in the passages entitled "Plays and Operas
too"An earlier version of the essay appeared in
"The Old Bowery," and "Old Actors, Singers, Shows, etc., in New
York."
