Nothing special or very different—continue laid up & imprison'd in sick room—y'rs of a week ago rec'd & welcom'd2—I want to send over some copies of my big book3 (works complete) one for you of course, & think of enveloping them stoutly & sending by ocean express—(to be call'd for there, or perhaps sent by local express)—& may send the parcel if you are willing—congratulate Mr. C4 on his success—
Walt Whitman loc.01382.001_large.jpgCorrespondent:
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).