The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, 8 July 1888
Date: July 8, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: loc.01368
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 4:183. 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, Ian Faith, Caterina Bernardini, and Stephanie Blalock
Camden N J America1
Sunday noon July 8 '88
Well here I am all alive yet—but some thumps & bruises—but above board yet—& (though perhaps not certain) count to rally in fair time—It is now a month I have been confined to room & bed—hot weather &c. brain & stomach trouble—a paralytic attack over four weeks ago—Best love to you & all
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: Whitall Costelloe | 40 Grosvenor Road | the Embankment | London | England. This postal card is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Jul 8 | 5 PM | 88. [back]