The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Edward Carpenter to Walt Whitman, 12 May 1876
Date: May 12, 1876
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01233
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.
Editorial note: The annotation, "Two sets sent," is in the hand of Walt Whitman.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Elizabeth Lorang, Eder Jaramillo, Kevin McMullen, John Schwaninger, Caterina Bernardini, Marie Ernster, Erel Michaelis, Amanda J. Axley, and Stephanie Blalock
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address
45 Brunswick Sq.
Brighton
12. May 1876.
Dear friend,
The two volumes have arrived quite safe. Many thanks. Send the other two vols to same address, as above. I have not looked at Two Rivulets1 yet—exc: the photograph, wh. is fine. This post to acknowledge receipt. I wish I could do more in return (for all you have done for me).
yours
Edward Carpenter
Correspondent:
Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) was an English
writer and Whitman disciple. Like many other young disillusioned Englishmen, he
deemed Whitman a prophetic spokesman of an ideal state cemented in the bonds of
brotherhood. Carpenter—a socialist philosopher who in his book Civilisation, Its Cause and Cure posited civilization as
a "disease" with a lifespan of approximately one thousand years before human
society cured itself—became an advocate for same-sex love and a
contributing early founder of Britain's Labour Party. On July 12, 1874, he wrote for the first time to Whitman: "Because you
have, as it were, given me a ground for the love of men I thank you continually
in my heart . . . . For you have made men to be not ashamed of the noblest
instinct of their nature." For further discussion of Carpenter, see Arnie
Kantrowitz, "Carpenter, Edward [1844–1929]," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. Published as a "companion volume" to the 1876 Author's edition of Leaves of Grass, Two Rivulets consisted of an "intertwining of the author's characteristic verse, alternated throughout with prose," as one critic from the The New York Daily Tribune wrote on February 19, 1876 (4). For more information on Two Rivulets, see Frances E. Keuling-Stout, "Two Rivulets, Author's Edition [1876]" and "Preface to Two Rivulets [1876]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]