The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to John H. Johnston, 24 April 1888
Date: April 24, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: loc.02572
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: Ryan Furlong, Ian Faith, Stefan Schöberlein, and Stephanie Blalock
 image 1 |
Camden
April 24 '88
Yours rec'd with the $9—pay for the books1—Thanks— —Nothing very new with me—I am just off on a ride & spree to Gloucester-shore to a planked shad & champagne dinner given me by my friend Billy Thompson2—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
John H. Johnston (1837–1919) was a New York
jeweler and close friend of Whitman. Johnston was also a friend of Joaquin
Miller (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, August 14, 1888). Whitman visited the Johnstons for the
first time early in 1877. In 1888 he observed to Horace Traubel: "I count
[Johnston] as in our inner circle, among the chosen few" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Wednesday, October 3, 1888). See also Johnston's letter about
Whitman, printed in Charles N. Elliot, Walt Whitman as Man,
Poet and Friend (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1915), 149–174. For
more on Johnston, see Susan L. Roberson, "Johnston, John H. (1837–1919) and Alma Calder," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. Johnston had taken Whitman's four-volume edition of Pepys and the two-volume Forman edition of Shelley on January 20 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). [back]
2. William J. "Billy" Thompson (1848–1911), known as "The Duke of Gloucester" and "The Statesman," was a friend of Whitman's who operated a hotel, race track, and amusement park on the beach overlooking the Delaware River at Gloucester, New Jersey. His shad and champagne dinners for Whitman were something of a tradition. See William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman (London: Alexander Gardner, 1896), 15–16. [back]