The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to William Michael Rossetti, 30 May 1886
Date: May 30, 1886
Whitman Archive ID: lcl.00001
Source: Liverpool Central Library. 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, Kyle Barton, and Nicole Gray
 image 1 |  image 2 |
328 Mickle street
Camden New Jersey U S America
May 30 1886
My dear friend
Yours of May 17, enclosing the fifth instalment £29.18.3 is just now safely received, making altogether—
| September 1885— | £ 22. 2.6 |
| October 20 " | 37.12. |
| November 28 " | 31.19. |
| January 25, 1886 | 33.16.1 |
| May 17 " | 29.18.3 |
| £ 155.9.9 |
for which I indeed, indeed thank you, and all—We have beautiful sunshiny weather here, & I am sitting by my open window writing this—
—If Herbert Gilchrist2 prints the circular you spoke of, send it me—send me three or four copies. I send best respects & love to my British contributor-friends—they have done me more good than they think for.3
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
William Michael Rossetti (1829–1915), brother
of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, was an English editor and a champion of
Whitman's work. In 1868 Rossetti edited Whitman's Poems,
selected from the 1867 Leaves of Grass. Whitman referred
to Rossetti's edition as a "horrible dismemberment of my book" in his August 12, 1871, letter to F.S. Ellis. Nonetheless,
the edition provided a major boost to Whitman's reputation, and Rossetti would
remain a staunch supporter for the rest of Whitman's life, drawing in
subscribers to the 1876 Leaves of Grass and fundraising
for Whitman in England. For more on Whitman's relationship with Rossetti, see
Sherwood Smith, "Rossetti, William Michael (1829–1915)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. The entry in Whitman's Commonplace Book for this date lists the sum as £33.16.6 (Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). [back]
2. Herbert Harlakenden Gilchrist (1857–1914), son of Alexander and Anne Gilchrist, was an English painter and editor of Anne Gilchrist: Her Life and Writings (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1887). For more information, see Marion Walker Alcaro, "Gilchrist, Herbert Harlakenden (1857–1914)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
3. Rossetti distributed a facsimile of this letter to the donors, eighty or more of whom are listed on the verso with their contributions. Among the donors were Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Addington Symonds, George Saintsbury, and Edward Dowden. [back]