William Sloane Kennedy to Walt Whitman, 18 October 1888

About This Item

Title: William Sloane Kennedy to Walt Whitman, 18 October 1888
Date: October 18, 1888
Creator(s): William Sloane Kennedy
Whitman Archive ID: loc.02957
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.
Contributors to digital file: Jeannette Schollaert Alex Ashland Caterina Bernardini Stephanie Blalock
Cite this page: Kennedy, William Sloane. "William Sloane Kennedy to Walt Whitman, 18 October 1888." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 18 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: loc.02957.xml (TEI)

loc.02957.002.jpg

I send1 you the Transcript with my notice of November Boughs2—hastily pencil-scrawled bet jobs on my proof desk.3 I have really no time to myself now—exc a sleepy hour o' evening. The same Transcript contains a good long piece by young Sadakichi Hartmann.4

Yr card just rec'd. Thank you. Be sure to tell me abt O'C.5 when you hear. I asked Traubel6 to tell you that Wilson (Glaswegian)7 had written me abt my book.8

cordially yrs W.S.Kennedy.

loc.02957.001.jpg See notes Oct 19, 1888

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. This postal card is addressed: Walt Whitman | Camden | New Jersey. It is postmarked: BELMONT | OCT 18 | MASS; Camden N [illegible] | Oct | 19 | 1 PM | [illegible] | Rec'd. [back]
2. Whitman's November Boughs was published in October 1888 by Philadelphia publisher David McKay. For more information on the book, see James E. Barcus Jr., "November Boughs [1888]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
3. Kennedy is referring to "Walt Whitman's New Volume," a notice of the publication of November Boughs that was published in the Boston Evening Transcript on October 17, 1888. [back]
4. Carl Sadakichi Hartmann (ca. 1867–1944) was an art historian and early critic of photography as an art form. He visited Whitman in Camden in the 1880s and published his conversations with the poet in 1895. Generally unpopular with other supporters of the poet, he was known during his years in Greenwich Village as the "King of Bohemia." For more information about Hartmann, see John F. Roche, "Hartmann, C. Sadakichi (ca. 1867–1944)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
5. William Douglas O'Connor (1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866. For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
6. 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]
7. Frederick W. Wilson was a member of the Glasgow firm of Wilson & McCormick that published the 1883 British edition of Specimen Days and Collect. [back]
8. Kennedy worked incessantly on his "book" and frequently alerted Whitman that it was about to come out, but his two books on Whitman did not appear until years after the poet's death. [back]