With Walt Whitman in Camden vol. 9 (1996)

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EDITORS' PREFACE

The publication of this book completes the series, With Walt Whitman in Camden, ninety years after its author, Horace Traubel, published the first volume. Traubel began his records of daily conversations with the poet in 1888, and continued until Whitman's death four years later. In his foreword to Volume 1, he wrote:

Did Whitman know I was keeping such a record? No. Yet he knew I would write of our experiences together. Now and then he charged me with immortal commissions. He would say: "I want you to speak for me when I am dead." On several occasions I read him my reports. They were very satisfactory. "You do the thing just as I should wish it to be done." He always imposed it upon me to tell the truth about him. The worst truth no less than the best truth.... So I have let Whitman alone. I have let him remain the chief figure in his own story. This book is more his book than my book. It talks his words. It reflects his manner. It is the utterance of his faith. That is why I have not fooled with its text.... It occurs here in the rude dress natural to the incidents that produced it. I had no time then to polish. I have had no disposition since to do what I had no time to do then.... Whitman was not afraid of the man who would make too little of him. He was afraid of the man who would make too much of him.... I have never lost sight of his command of commands: "Whatever you do do not prettify me."

Like the editors of the previous volumes--Anne Traubel, Gertrude Traubel, Sculley Bradley, and William White--we have presented Traubel's manuscript as it was written. In a few cases, a word or phrase has been inserted in brackets to complete an otherwise unintelligible sentence, and the punctuation has sometimes been adjusted to assist readability.

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The completion of this series has been a collaborative effort on the part of many people over the course of many years. We are deeply indebted to Robert Burton, director of the Fellowship of Friends; to William Bentley, the publisher; to Charles Feinberg, whose splendid collection of Whitman materials, now in the Library of Congress, includes Traubel's manuscript; and to Professor Ed Folsom, who wrote the foreword to this volume. The staff of the Manuscript Room at the Library of Congress were unfailingly helpful. Significant contributions were also made by Peter Bishop, Abraham and Susan Goldman, Judith Grace, Cynthia Hill, Kevin Kelleher, Leigh Morfit, Peter and Paula Ingle, Rosalind Mearns, and Alla Waite.

Apollo, California
July 1996

JEANNE CHAPMAN

ROBERT MACISAAC

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