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Walt Whitman to David McKay, 3 April 1891

About This Item

  • Title: Walt Whitman to David McKay, 3 April 1891
  • Date: April 3, 1891
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: har.00042
  • Source: Manuscripts Department, Houghton Library, Harvard University. 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 created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.
  • Contributors to digital file: Blake Bronson-Bartlett Ian Faith Alex Ashland Stephanie Blalock
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to David McKay, 3 April 1891." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 09 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: har.00042.xml (TEI)
 har.00042.001_large.jpg Camden New Jersey1 April 3, '91

Yes there were certainly 100 sets—I see by my memoranda book—50 to yr order Aug: 27 '90 & 50 same order Oct: 21 '902—you can of course verify it all by Oldach's3 delivery

Walt Whitman  har.00042.002_large.jpg

Correspondent:
David McKay (1860–1918) took over Philadelphia-based publisher Rees Welsh's bookselling and publishing businesses in 1881–82. McKay and Rees Welsh published the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass after opposition from the Boston District Attorney prompted James R. Osgood & Company of Boston, the original publisher, to withdraw. McKay also went on to publish Specimen Days & Collect, November Boughs, Gems from Walt Whitman, Complete Prose Works, and the final Leaves of Grass, the so-called deathbed edition. For more information about McKay, see Joel Myerson, "McKay, David (1860–1918)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Notes

  • 1. This postal card is addressed: David McKay | publisher &c: | 23 south 9th street | Philadelphia. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Apr 3 | 6 PM | 91; Received 5 | Apr | 3 | 730 PM | [illegible] | Phila. [back]
  • 2. See Whitman's November 1, 1890, letter to David McKay. On the following day McKay paid Whitman $127.87—"pays up (does it?) to date everything (inc'ng the 6 sets above)" (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). See also Whitman's March 31, 1891 letter to Horace Traubel, as well as the poet's April 5 and April 6, 1891, letters to McKay. [back]
  • 3. Frederick Oldach (1823–1907) was a German bookbinder whose Philadelphia firm bound Whitman's November Boughs (1888) and Complete Poems & Prose (1888), as well as the special seventieth-birthday issue of Leaves of Grass (1889). [back]
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