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800 SIXTEENTH STREET,1
LAFAYETTE SQUARE.
Washington D.C.
Mar. 22.
Dear Walt Whitman
Have you a copy of the Centennial Edition2 of your Poems you could let me have—or any
edition with your autograph? I want it very much for a friend.
Do not send the cheque back even if you have not the book.
Can I be of any service to you? if so you need only command me.
Yours affectionately
John Hay
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If not delivered3 in 5 days | return to 800—16th St. | Washington D. C.
see notes Mar 24 1892
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Correspondent:
John Hay (1838–1905) was
Abraham Lincoln's private secretary and a historian as well as Secretary of
State under Theodore Roosevelt. Hay praised Whitman's "A Death-Sonnet for
Custer" (later entitled "From Far Dakota's Cañons") when it appeared in the
New York Daily Tribune on July 10, 1876. Whitman sent the
1876 Centennial Edition of Leaves of Grass to Hay on
August 1, 1876 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of
the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington,
D.C.).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman | Poet | Camden Town | New Jersey. It is postmarked: WASHINGTON, D.
C. | MAR 22 | 4-PM | 1892; CAMDEN, N.J. | MAR23 | 6AM | 92 | RECD. This letter
arrived three days before Whitman's death on March 26, 1892. [back]
- 2. During America's centennial celebration in 1876,
Whitman, reissued the fifth edition of Leaves of Grass in
the repackaged form of a "Centennial Edition" and "Author's Edition," with each
copy personally signed by Whitman. Around the same time, Whitman also brought
out, as part of the nation's centennial celebration, his Two
Rivulets, an experiment in prose and poetry, with (in the first section
of the book) poetry printed at the top of the page and separated by a wavy line
from the stream of prose at the bottom of each page. For more information on
these books, see Frances E. Keuling-Stout, "Leaves of Grass, 1876, Author's Edition"
and "Two Rivulets, Author's Edition [1876],"
Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. Hay wrote this return
address information in the top left corner on the front side of the
envelope. [back]