The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Ernest Rhys, 13 September 1888
Date: September 13, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: bms.00005
Source: British Museum. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 4:211. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Ryan Furlong, Ian Faith, and Stephanie Blalock
Camden NJ—US America1
Sept: 13 '88
Still kept in my sick room & the summer season is ab't over. I sit up all day, but feebleness & inability to get about possess me enitrely.
My little 140 page November Boughs & the big 900 page Vol. Complete are nearly done.2 I will send them to you when ready—Gilchrist3 is here—
Walt Whitman
Y'r letter came—
Correspondent:
Ernest Percival Rhys
(1859–1946) was a British author and editor; he founded the Everyman's
Library series of inexpensive reprintings of popular works. He included a volume
of Whitman's poems in the Canterbury Poets series and two volumes of Whitman's
prose in the Camelot series for Walter Scott publishers. For more information
about Rhys, see Joel Myerson, "Rhys, Ernest Percival (1859–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. This letter is addressed: Ernest Rhys | [new address inserted]. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Sep 13 | 8 PM | 88; London, E.C. | A | 9 24 8 | 88(?). [back]
2. November Boughs was bound and ready to be sent to friends in October and Complete Poems & Prose was ready in December. [back]
3. Herbert Harlakenden Gilchrist (1857–1914), son of Alexander and Anne Gilchrist, was an English painter and editor of Anne Gilchrist: Her Life and Writings (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1887). For more information, see Marion Walker Alcaro, "Gilchrist, Herbert Harlakenden (1857–1914)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]