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Walt Whitman to the Editor of the Century Illustrated Monthly Review, 15 July 1886

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—Thanks for the three slips. I shall keep them carefully in my own hands until I see "Father Taylor" printed in the Magazine2—If I am indebted, as I fancy, to the printing office, for the courtesy of the slips please send this card there if convenient

Walt Whitman

Correspondent:
Richard Watson Gilder (1844–1909) was the assistant editor of Scribner's Monthly from 1870 to 1881 and editor of its successor, The Century, from 1881 until his death. Whitman had met Gilder for the first time in 1877 at John H. Johnston's (Gay Wilson Allen, The Solitary Singer [New York: New York University Press, 1955], 482). Whitman attended a reception and tea given by Gilder after William Cullen Bryant's funeral on June 14; see "A Poet's Recreation" in the New York Tribune, July 4, 1878. Whitman considered Gilder one of the "always sane men in the general madness" of "that New York art delirium" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, August 5, 1888). For more about Gilder, see Susan L. Roberson, "Gilder, Richard Watson (1844–1909)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).


Notes

  • 1. This letter is addressed: Editor | Century Magazine | Union Square | New York City. It is postmarked: CAMDEN | JUL | 15 | 8 PM | 1886 | N.J.; P. | 7-16-86 | 6 A | N.Y.; P.O. | 7-16-86 | [illegible] | N [illegible]. [back]
  • 2. "Father Taylor and Oratory" appeared in February 1887. [back]
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