The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, 4 August 1888
Date: August 4, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01366
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.
Contributors to digital file: Ryan Furlong, Alex Ashland, Caterina Bernardini, and Stephanie Blalock
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Camden1
Sunset
Aug: 4 '88
This has been the hottest day of the season—but I have got thro' fairly with it—& have just finish'd & quite enjoy'd my dinner. Not yet left my room for down stairs—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe
(1864–1945) was a political activist, art historian, and critic, whom
Whitman once called his "staunchest living woman friend." A scholar of Italian
Renaissance art and a daughter of Robert Pearsall Smith, she would in 1885 marry
B. F. C. "Frank" Costelloe. She had been in contact with many of Whitman's
English friends and would travel to Britain in 1885 to visit many of them,
including Anne Gilchrist shortly before her death. For more, see Christina
Davey, "Costelloe, Mary Whitall Smith (1864–1945)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. This postal card is addressed: Mrs: Mary Whitall Costelloe | 40 Grosvenor Road | the Embankment | London England. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Aug 4 | 8 PM | 88; Ph [illegible] | Aug [illegible] | 11 P M | [illegible]. [back]