Title: Walt Whitman to R. Spence Watson, 9 September [1876]
Date: September 9, 1876
Whitman Archive ID: loc.02851
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 6:16. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Kenneth M. Price, Elizabeth Lorang, Kathryn Kruger, Zachary King, and Eric Conrad
Camden, N Jersey—U S America
Sept 9—1
I to-day send you by mail, a second set, Two Vols. of my Books. (One set went nine days ago) Please notify me by postal card soon as you receive them.
W Whitman
1.
This letter's envelope bears the address, "R Spence Watson | 101 Pilgrim
Street | Newcastle-on-Tyne | England." It is postmarked: "Camden | Sep | 9 |
N.J."
Watson was apparently one of William Michael Rossetti's friends and among the
early English admirers of Leaves of Grass. Whitman
had sent a set of books on August 30, 1876. On
September 29, 1884, Watson requested an inscribed copy of Leaves of Grass (Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection
of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.). [back]