The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to the Editor of The North American Review, 12 May 1882
Date: May 12, 1882
Whitman Archive ID: loc.02913
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 created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schoeberlein, Nima Najafi Kianfar, Eder Jaramillo, and Nicole Gray
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431 Stevens Street
Camden New Jersey
Evn'g May 12 '82
Dear Sir
Yours of yesterday rec'd—I could send the MS of Carlyle from an American Point of View by the 20th or 21st a week from now1—It would make about nine or ten pages—
—What I said about its being "a candidate for the place of leading paper" &c—was meant to be left entirely to the editorial exigencies & judgment—no condition at all—
Walt Whitman
Notes:
1. Whitman sent the article on May 18, and it was returned to him (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). It is printed in Specimen Days, ed. Floyd Stovall (New York: New York University Press, 1963), 254–262. The North American Review also rejected "The Prairies in Poetry" which the poet submitted on May 4 and for which he asked $50 (Whitman's Commonplace Book). This article included a number of sections in Specimen Days (219–224; and see Stovall's note, 219n). [back]