The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to William Sloane Kennedy, 11 August [1886]
Date: August 11, 1886
Whitman Archive ID: col.00006
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, New York. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial notes: The annotations, "(over)," and "['86]," are in an unknown hand. The annotation, "This card relates to the ms of my 'Walt Whitman, the Poet of Humanity'," is in the hand of William Sloane Kennedy.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schöberlein, Kyle Barton, Marie Ernster, Stephanie Blalock, Paige Wilkinson, and Amanda J. Axley
 image 1 |  image 2 |
Camden
Aug: 11 Evn'g1
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
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). Apparently Kennedy had 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 Mas[s]. 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]