loc.02214.001.jpg
see notes Nov 18th 1888
The Critic
743 Broadway
New York
17 Nov: 1888
Dear Mr. Whitman:
I was particularly delighted to receive the enclosed communication, as an indication
of your being in a tolerable state of health.1 Would that you were in, or nearer, New
York, that your many friends here might see more of you!
Always sincerely yours
Joseph B. Gilder
loc.02214.002.jpg
Correspondent:
Joseph Benson Gilder (1858–1936) was, with his
sister Jeannette Leonard Gilder (1849–1916), co-editor of The Critic, a literary magazine.
Notes
- 1. In a form letter on October 19, 1888, Gilder and his sister Jeanette of
The Critic asked for Walt Whitman's "answer to the
question raised by Mr. Edmund Gosse in his paper in the October Forum, entitled
'Has America Produced a Poet?'—the question, namely, whether any American
poet, not now living, deserves a place among the thirteen 'English inheritors of
unassailed renown.'" Walt Whitman sent his reply on October 20, 1888, which J.
B. Gilder acknowledges here (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman
in Camden, Sunday, November 18, 1888). Whitman's response was published in the
November 24, 1888, Critic, along with responses by many
other writers (including John Greenleaf Whittier, John Burroughs, Francis
Parkman, and Julia Ward Howe). See also Traubel, With Walt
Whitman in Camden, Monday, October 22, 1888. [back]