The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Talcott Williams, 12 October 1884
Date: October 12, 1884
Whitman Archive ID: col.00012
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.
Notes for this letter were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented, updated, or created by Whitman Archive staff as appropriate.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schöberlein and Kyle Barton
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328 Mickle Street
Camden
Oct 12 pm
My dear Williams
After I sent your note in answer yesterday—& reading yours again—I have perpetrated this—do I understand you are to have a long varied Blaine melange like in sections—the Presidential canvas business, of course? If so you might find a spot in the course of it all, where this [screed?] may come in1—
—If that don't suit you, or is not practicable (though I hope it will be, as I should like it just as well) print it by itself, like the little piece of Friday last.2
—I will call about 10. this evening to see proof.
Whitman
Correspondent:
Talcott Williams
(1849–1928) was associated with the New York Sun
and World as well as the Springfield Republican before he became the editor of the Philadelphia Press in 1879. His newspaper vigorously defended Whitman
in news articles and editorials after the Boston censorship of 1882. For more
information about Williams, see Philip W. Leon, "Williams, Talcott (1849–1928)," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. "If I Should Need to Name, O Western World" (later "Election Day, November, 1884") appeared in the Philadelphia Press on October 26. Whitman received $10 for the poem (Whitman's Commonplace Book). The manuscript, with instructions to the printer for putting it in type, is in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection (Library of Congress, Washington D.C.). [back]
2. "Red Jacket (from Aloft)." [back]