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Rudolf Schmidt to Walt Whitman, 2 January 1874

About This Item

  • Title: Rudolf Schmidt to Walt Whitman, 2 January 1874
  • Date: January 2, 1874
  • Creator(s): Rudolf Schmidt
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.01908
  • 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: Alex Kinnaman Elizabeth Lorang Kevin McMullen Ashley Lawson John Schwaninger Caterina Bernardini Cristin Noonan Marie Ernster Amanda J. Axley Stephanie Blalock
  • Cite this page: Schmidt, Rudolf. "Rudolf Schmidt to Walt Whitman, 2 January 1874." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 09 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.01908.xml (TEI)
 loc.01908.005_large.jpg see notes Dec 22 1888 Copenhagen, 2 January 1874. Dear Walt Whitman,

To day the first part of the manuscript of the translation of 'Democratic Vistas"1 goes to the printer. I would not write to you before I could give you sure information.

It is a devilish hard task to translate your prose, and our ordinary  loc.01908.006_large.jpg translators most surely would break the​ neck in trying it.

I shall send you the translation in loose sheets and give the bookseller order to send you one or two complete copies.

When the book appears, I will have left Copenhagen for one or two months; I am going to Germany a little tour.

Your letters shall reach  loc.01908.007_large.jpg me surely, when sent to the old address: Klareboderne 16, 2.

I should be glad to hear from you. An American gentleman told me, that you were going to England? Is it true?

Yours Rudolf Schmidt  loc.01908.008_large.jpg Rud. Schmidt Jan. 2, '74

Correspondent:
The Danish writer Peter Carl Rudolf Schmidt (1836–1899) was the editor of the idealist journal For Idé og Virkelighed ("For Idea and Reality") and had translated Whitman's Democratic Vistas into Danish in 1874.

Notes

  • 1. Whitman's Democratic Vistas was first published in 1871 in New York by J.S. Redfield. The volume was an eighty-four-page pamphlet based on three essays, "Democracy," "Personalism," and "Orbic Literature," all of which Whitman intended to publish in the Galaxy magazine. Only "Democracy" and "Personalism" appeared in the magazine. For more information on Democratic Vistas, see Arthur Wrobel, "Democratic Vistas [1871]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
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