The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Jeanette L. Gilder, 21 April 1887
Date: April 21, 1887
Whitman Archive ID: loc.02212
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.
Notes for this letter were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented, updated, or created by Whitman Archive staff as appropriate.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Ashland, Stefan Schöberlein, Kevin McMullen, and Stephanie Blalock
 image 1 |  image 2 |
328 Mickle Street1
Camden New Jersey
April 21 '87—
I sh'd like all the proofs—(all that are taken, without exception)2—sent to me here—I will return them, with what I have to say—Send them flat—if convenient—
Hand this note to Mr Cox—I am all right—rec'd $600 for my lecture.3 Andrew Carnegie4 sent me $350 for his box—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Jeannette Leonard Gilder (1849–1916) helped
her brother, Richard Watson Gilder (1844–1909), edit Scribner's Monthly and then, with another brother, Joseph Benson
Gilder (1858–1936), co-edited the Critic (which she
co-founded in 1881). For more, see Susan L. Roberson, "Gilder, Jeannette L. (1849–1916)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. This postal card is addressed: Miss Jeannette Gilder | Critic office | 743 Broadway | New York City. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Apr 2 [illegible] | 12 [illegible]M | 87; P.O. | 4–21–87 | 4 [illegible] P. | [illegible]; D | 4–21–87 | 5 [illegible] | N.Y. [back]
2. Apparently proofs of the pictures taken by photographer C.O. Cox on April 15 (see Whitman's postal card to William Sloane Kennedy of April 15, 1887, n2). [back]
3. Whitman is referring to his lecture entitled "The Death of Abraham Lincoln," which he delivered in New York City on Thursday, April 14, 1887. He first delivered this lecture in New York in 1879 and would deliver it at least eight other times over the succeeding years, delivering it for the last time on April 15, 1890. He had published a version of the lecture as "Death of Abraham Lincoln" in Specimen Days (1882–83). For more on the lecture, see Larry D. Griffin, "'Death of Abraham Lincoln,'" Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, ed. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 169–170. [back]
4. Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), the prominent industrialist and admirer of Whitman, had donated twice to the support of the aged poet. [back]