The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Franklin File to Walt Whitman, 16 July 1890
Date: July 16, 1890
Whitman Archive ID: loc.02055
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: Kirby Little, Ian Faith, Blake Bronson-Bartlett, and Stephanie Blalock
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FRANKLIN FILE, 1285 BROADWAY, NEW
YORK.1
July 16, 1890
Walt Whitman, Esq—
Dear Sir:
Have you any inclination toward writing a prose story of fiction—a novelette? I could pay you $100 on receipt of the manuscript, five thousand words in length. I would probably publish it in the Boston Herald, New York Sun, Chicago Tribune, and Philadelphia Press.
I refer you to Mr. Bradford Merrill,2 managing editor of the Press, or to any of the mentioned journals.
Yours respectfully,
Franklin File,
1285 Broadway
New York.
Correspondent:
Franklin File (also "Fyles,"
1847–1911), a writer and editor, was part of a newspaper syndicate
including the Boston Herald and the Philadelphia Press. He was also the Dramatic Editor at the New York Sun from 1872 to 1903. He contributed short
stories to magazines and newspapers, and is author of one book, The Theater and its People (1900), and several plays
including Three Days (1876), The Girl I
Left Behind Me (1892) and Cumberland. '61
(1897). In 1890, 1285 Broadway was the address for the uptown offices of the New York Sun.
Notes:
1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman, Esq., | Camden, | New Jersey. File's return address of "1285 Broadway, New York," is printed on the left side of the envelope's verso. The letter is postmarked: [Kaaterskill?] | JUL | 16 | 1890 | N. Y.; Camden, N. J. | [illegible] | 18 | 6AM | 1890 | Rec'd. [back]
2. William Bradford Merrill (1861–1928) had a long career in journalism, beginning with the Philadelphia North American and the Philadelphia Press before moving to the New York Press in 1891. Five years later, Merrill became Managing Editor of the New York World and then of the New York American five years after that. In 1917, William Randolph Hearst named Merrill General Manager of all Hearst publications, a position he held until one year before his death. [back]