loc.02997.002.jpg
April '891
Yes, I sent on the letter of Stedman2 & O'C.3 (& yrs). Stedman's letter4 was extremely interesting,
impetuous, egotistic, vain, extravagant, affectionate & warm—quite
characteristic. His Lib. of Am Lit.5 I can't like very
much, somehow. Good for cross‑road school-houses, I suppose. Thank you very
much for Stedman's letter. A copious green‑silver warmish rain today. Worked
to‑day on Greek type & proofs.
as always yr frd.—
W.S.K.
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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. The date appears after the
signature. The card was originally addressed to Mrs. S.E. Kennedy, but her name
has been crossed out. This postal card is addressed: Walt Whitman | Camden | New
Jersey. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Apr | 19 | 10 AM | 1889 | Rec'd. [back]
- 2. Edmund Clarence Stedman
(1833–1908) was a man of diverse talents. He edited for a year the Mountain County Herald at Winsted, Connecticut, wrote
"Honest Abe of the West," presumably Lincoln's first campaign song, and served
as correspondent of the New York World from 1860 to 1862.
In 1862 and 1863 he was a private secretary in the Attorney General's office
until he entered the firm of Samuel Hallett and Company in September, 1863. The
next year he opened his own brokerage office. He published many volumes of poems
and was an indefatigable compiler of anthologies, among which were Poets of America, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1885) and A Library of American Literature from the Earliest
Settlement to the Present Time, 11 vols. (New York: C. L. Webster,
1889–90). For more, see Donald Yannella, "Stedman, Edmund Clarence (1833–1908)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. 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]
- 4. Kennedy is referring to
Stedman's letter to Whitman of March 27, 1889.
Whitman had enclosed Stedman's letter in his April 8,
1889, letter to Kennedy. [back]
- 5. A Library
of Great American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present
Time was an eleven-volume set compiled and edited by Stedman and Ellen
MacKay Hutchinson and released from 1889–1890. [back]