The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Marie Blood to Walt Whitman, July [1867–1871]
Date: July [1867–1871]
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01107
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt
Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 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: Cristin Noonan, Marie Ernster, Amanda J. Axley, Paige Wilkinson, and Stephanie Blalock
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New-Ipswich1
July
Dear Mr Whitman
I was made happy a few days since by the receipt of your picture
I liked the familiar hat, but should have preferred the handsome brow.
I should have replied immediately but for expecting my own picture from Boston a copy of which I have the pleasure to enclose.
Mr Blood wrote me that he invited you here this month—for which I am glad—and only hope you will come.
It is not impossible that the future Mrs Whitman lives in this latitude—why dont you come so as to join us in our trip to Saratoga about the first proximo?
My love to Mrs Benedict!2
Yours Sincerely
Marie Blood.3
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Marie Blood was the wife of
Henry A. Blood, a clerk in the Internal Revenue Service (see Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, ed. Edward F. Grier [New
York: New York University Press, 1984], 2:846).
Notes:
1. Blood's address was noted by Whitman as New Ipswich, NH (see Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, ed. Edward F. Grier [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 2:844). [back]
2. Mr. and Mrs. Newton Benedict were Walt Whitman's landlords at 468 M North, having replaced Juliet Grayson after her death in 1867. Whitman recorded this change in management in his February 12, 1867 letter to Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. [back]
3. Blood's reference to Mrs. Benedict potentially dates this letter from 1867–1871, during which time Whitman lived at the Benedicts' boarding house. [back]