The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: James Redpath to Walt Whitman, 6 October 1886
Date: October 6, 1886
Whitman Archive ID: loc.03293
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 derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented, updated, or created by Whitman Archive staff as appropriate.
Contributors to digital file: Marie Ernster, Amanda J. Axley, Stephanie Blalock, and Paige Wilkinson
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Form No. 1.
THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY.
This Company TRANSMITS and
DELIVERS messages only on conditions limiting its liability, which have been
assented to by the sender of the following message.
Errors can be guarded against only by repeating a message
back to the sending station for comparison, and the company will not hold
itself liable for errors or delays in transmission or delivery of Unrepeated
Messages, beyond the amount of tolls paid thereon, nor in any case where the
claim is not presented in writing within sixty days after sending the
message.
This is an UNREPEATED MESSAGE, and is delivered by request of
the sender, under the conditions named above.
THOS. T. ECKERT, General Manager.
NORVIN GREEN, President.
Number | 7
Sent By | Lo
Rec'd By | M
Check | 6 Paid
Received at No. 7 North THIRD
St.
1886
Dated New York NY
10/6
To Walt
Whitman
What price for Burns article1 answer,2
Jas. Redpath
Correspondent:
James Redpath (1833–1891),
an antislavery activist, journalist, and longtime friend of Whitman, was the
author of The Public Life of Capt. John Brown (Boston:
Thayer and Eldridge, 1860), a correspondent for the New York
Tribune during the war, and the originator of the "Lyceum" lectures. He
met Whitman in Boston in 1860, and he remained an enthusiastic admirer; see
Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Friday, January 4, 1889. He concluded his first letter to Whitman on
June 25, 1860: "I love you, Walt! A conquering
Brigade will ere long march to the music of your barbaric jawp." Redpath became
managing editor of The North American Review in 1886. See
also Charles F. Horner, The Life of James Redpath and the
Development of the Modern Lyceum, (New York: Barse & Hopkins,
1926); John R. McKivigan, Forgotten Firebrand: James Redpath
and the Making of Nineteenth-Century America, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 2008); and J.R. LeMaster, "Redpath, James [1833–1891]," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. "Robert Burns" had already appeared in The Critic on December 16, 1882, and Whitman republished it in the North American Review under the title "Robert Burns as Poet and Person" in November 1886. [back]
2. See the letter from Whitman to James Redpath of July 10, 1886. On August 6 Whitman sent Redpath "Robert Burns As Poet and Person," for which he received $70 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). Whitman returned the proof on August 31 (Whitman's Commonplace Book). The essay appeared in The North American Review in November 1886. [back]