The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to William Sloane Kennedy, 21 December 1881
Date: December 21, 1881
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00761
Source: The Trent Collection of Walt Whitman Manuscripts, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 3:260. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schoeberlein, Nima Najafi Kianfar, Eder Jaramillo, and Nicole Gray
431 Stevens Street
Camden New Jersey
Dec 21 '81
My dear W S K
Yours rec'd & glad to hear from you—have not forgotten those pleasant calls & chats, & hope they will one day be renewed—I read your (added to & somewhat changed) California magazine criticism1—the copy you showed Osgood—& thought it noble—
Am thankful to you & of course much pleased with your study of, & exploiting L of G—have just sent you a package by express of the late & other editions & Vols. of poems &c. as my Christmas offering2—with affectionate remembrances—
Walt Whitman
Notes:
1. This is a reference to "A Study of Walt Whitman," The Californian, 3 (February 1881), 149–158. [back]
2. Whitman sent three copies of Leaves of Grass (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). Kennedy wrote at the conclusion of the letter: "I afterward sent him $5. as part payment for these K" (Faint Clews & Indirections: Manuscripts of Walt Whitman and His Family, ed. Clarence Gohdes and Rollo G. Silver [Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1949], 94n). [back]