The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Ernest Rhys, 6 April 1887
Date: April 6, 1887
Whitman Archive ID: loc.03317
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: Stefan Schöberlein, Alex Ashland, Caterina Bernardini, and Stephanie Blalock
 image 1 |  image 2 |
Camden New Jersey U S America1
April 6 '87—
Yours of March 24 rec'd2—also one some 12 days previous—thanks—you ought to have rec'd the MS of my "additional note" to your ed'n of Spec: Days in America—as I sent it on the 15th March—yes, send me two or three printed slip impressions of the Preface, soon as ready—also two or three printed impr: of the "note" when ready—I am well as usual—delivered my annual "Death of Abraham Lincoln" lecture3 here in Camden before the Unitarians last night
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Ernest Percival Rhys
(1859–1946) was a British author and editor; he founded the Everyman's
Library series of inexpensive reprintings of popular works. He included a volume
of Whitman's poems in the Canterbury Poets series and two volumes of Whitman's
prose in the Camelot series for Walter Scott publishers. For more information
about Rhys, see Joel Myerson, "Rhys, Ernest Percival (1859–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. This postal card is addressed: Ernest Rhys | Care of Walter Scott | Publisher 24 Warwick Lane | London England | ec. It is postmarked [illegible] [illegible] | APR [illegible] | 6 PM | 87. [back]
2. The two Rhys-letters that Whitman is referring to are not extant. In his March 29, 1887 letter to Whitman, Rhys writes: "Your letter of the 15th with the 'Additional Note' was not long in following the other." [back]
3. This is a reference to Whitman's lecture entitled "The Death of Abraham Lincoln." He first delivered this lecture in New York in 1879 and would deliver it at least eight other times over the succeeding years, delivering it for the last time on April 15, 1890. He published a version of the lecture as "Death of Abraham Lincoln" in Specimen Days and Collect (1882–83). For more on the lecture, see Larry D. Griffin, "'Death of Abraham Lincoln,'" Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, ed. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]