Correspondent:
William J. Linton (1812–1897), a British-born wood engraver, came to the United States in 1866 and settled near New Haven, Connecticut. He illustrated the works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, and others, wrote the "indispensable" History of Wood-Engraving in America (1882), and edited Poetry of America, 1776–1876 (London, 1878), in which appeared eight of Whitman's poems as well as a frontispiece engraving of the poet. According to his Threescore and Ten Years, 1820 to 1890—Recollections (1894), 216–217, Linton met with Whitman in Washington and later visited him in Camden (which Whitman reported in his November 9, 1873, letter to Peter Doyle): "I liked the man much, a fine-natured, good-hearted, big fellow, . . . a true poet who could not write poetry, much of wilfulness accounting for his neglect of form."

Notes:

1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | 431 Stevens St | Cor: 7 West St | Camden | NJ. It is postmarked: New Haven | MAY 19 | CT. [back]

2. "The Mystic Trumpeter" first appeared in the Kansas Magazine in February 1872 and in the Washington Daily Morning Chronicle on February 7, 1872. Whitman submitted the poem to William and Francis Church, editors of the Galaxy, for their January 1872 issue in a November 2, 1871 letter; however, they rejected it. "The Mystic Trumpeter" was later published in the small volume As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free, which supplemented Two Rivulets, published in 1876. For digital images of the poem as it appeared in the Kansas Magazine, see "The Mystic Trumpeter." [back]