Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: William Sloane Kennedy to Walt Whitman, [4 September 1888]

Date: [September 4, 1888]

Whitman Archive ID: loc.02955

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: Jeannette Schollaert, Ian Faith, Caterina Bernardini, and Stpehanie Blalock



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Dear Walt W.

I enclose letter fr St Louis1

I have begun to copy over (clean) some 70 pp of the Whitman ms. (my book).

Glad to hear of yr new books.2 Am still reading proof.


WS Kennedy

I don't see much prospect of my work on you seeing the light soon, But—.

Regards to Traubel.3


Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy (1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman, in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was "too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February 1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Notes:

1. On September 1, 1888, Jacob Klein, a St. Louis lawyer, wrote to Kennedy to inquire whether he should write directly to Whitman in order to obtain the 1876 edition of Leaves of Grass. Kennedy forwarded the letter to Whitman, including it as an enclosure with this letter. Whitman wrote "ans'd" on Klein's note. See also Whitman's letters to Klein of September 10, 1888 and September 17, 1888[back]

2. Kennedy is probably referring to Whitman's November Boughs, which would be published in October 1888, and Complete Poems & Prose, which would be published in December 1888. [back]

3. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919) was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations, which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914). After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel, see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]


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