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Joseph B. Gilder to Walt Whitman, 17 November 1888

 loc.02214.001.jpg see notes Nov 18th 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]
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