The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to George W. Childs, 31 January [1879]
Date: January 31, 1879
Whitman Archive ID: hsp.00001
Source: Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 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: Alicia Bones, Grace Thomas, Anthony Dreesen, Kevin McMullen, and Nicole Gray
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431 Stevens Street
Camden
Friday noon Jan 31
Dear Mr Childs1
If nothing imperative prevents, I shall do myself the pleasure of accepting your invitation for to-morrow night—'Twould be a kindness to me if you would have one of your young men (Mr Johan2 perhaps) come down & meet me at the foot of Market Street (Camden Federal Street Ferry reception room—Philadelphia side) at ¼ to 8, and convoy me up to your house—
Walt Whitman
Notes:
1. See the letter from Whitman to George W. Childs of December 12, 1878. Whitman attended a reception at Childs's on the following day. On April 9, 1878, D. W. Belisle, with the encouragement of Childs, had approached Whitman about an edition of Leaves of Grass, "leaving out the objectionable passages...(decided at once to decline on any such condition)" (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). [back]
2. John A. Johann, of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, whose calling card appears in Whitman's Commonplace Book. [back]