The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Joseph B. Gilder to Walt Whitman, 17 November 1888
Date: November 17, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: loc.02214
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.
Editorial note: The annotation, "see notes Nov 18th 1888," is in the hand of Horace Traubel.
Contributors to digital file: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Alex Ashland, Breanna Himschoot, and Stephanie Blalock
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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
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]