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Walt Whitman to William Sloane Kennedy, 11 August [1886]

 col.00006.001_large.jpg (over) ['86]

I may keep the MS2 a few days longer—two or three—I find upon taking it up to–day, it has a wonderful tenacity—of course a capital sign—I will send a few suggestion–notes—

W W  col.00006.002_large.jpg This card relates to the ms of my 'Walt Whitman, the Poet of Humanity'

Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy (1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman, in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was "too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February 1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).


Notes

  • 1. This postal card is addressed: Wm Sloane Kennedy | Belmont Mass. It is postmarked: CAMDEN | AUG | 11 | 8 PM | 1886 | N.J.; PHILADELPHIA | AUG | 11 | 9 PM | 1886 | [illegible] [back]
  • 2. Kennedy's manuscript, "Walt Whitman, the Poet of Humanity," eventually became two books, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman (1896) and The Fight of a Book for the World (1926). [back]
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