Published in London and New York from 1878 through 1904, the illustrated Magazine of Art was edited by M.H. Spielmann, an English art and literary critic, who also edited the London daily newspaper, the Pall Mall Gazette. Spielmann requested a poem from Whitman in November 1887, and Whitman obliged with "Twenty Years," assuring Spielmann that "the little 'Twenty Years' has not been hitherto publish/d & will not be until after you issue it." Whitman received $20.00 after the poem was published. The Magazine of Art published reviews of exhibitions, articles about artists, their works and lives, as well as poems, accompanied by often lavish illustrations. Whitman's "Twenty Years" was illustrated by Walter Paget, a London illustrator who, like his brother, Sidney Paget, the illustrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories, worked for a variety of British periodicals.
Lorang, Elizabeth. "Editing Whitman's Poems in Periodicals." Mickle Street Review: An Electronic Journal of Whitman and American Studies 2008, .
Whitman, Walt. The Correspondence. Edited by Edwin Haviland Miller. New York: New York University Press, 1969.