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The Editors of the Atlantic Monthly to Walt Whitman, 10 October 1861

Dear Sir:—We beg to inclose to your address, in two envelopes, the three poems with which you have favored us, but which we could not possibly use before their interest,—which is of the present,—would have passed. Thanking you for your attention,

We are, Very truly yours, EDITORS OF ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

Notes

  • 1. James Russell Lowell had been the editor at the Atlantic Monthly when Whitman published there in 1860. Unbeknownst to Whitman, however, James T. Fields, partner in the Atlantic's publisher Ticknor & Fields, took over the editorship of the magazine in May 1861 as a cost-saving measure. The Atlantic did not publish a list of its editors, and Whitman was not the only writer to submit to Lowell in error. On October 8, Lowell wrote to Fields promising some of his own work soon and enclosing "an article by Mr. S. A. Eliot—and three [poems] from Walt Whitman. '1861' he says is $20. the others $8. each." Two days later, Whitman received an impersonal reply—signed only "Editors of the Atlantic Monthly"—returning "the three poems with which you have favored us, but which we could not possibly use before their interest,—which is of the present,—would have passed." [back]
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