loc.03463.001.jpg
OFFICE OF
OLDACH & CO.
BOOK BINDERS,
No. 1215 FILBERT STREET
BINDERIES:
1215 Filbert Street.
AND
114 S. Third Street.
Philadelphia,
Oct 29 1890
Mr Walt Whitman
Dear Sir.
We delivered Mr McKay1 50 Walt Whitman. sheets.
as per Bill Enclosed. if this book is to be sold this way, it will be very
unprofitable to us to Carry the
sheets, which take up some very valuable room, to get out a few Copies now &
then, Costs us 3 or 4 times as much as we Can
charge You. if You do not intend to Bind up any of these
in a Reasonable time. we wish you would store them
elsewhere2
Yours truly
Oldach & Co
loc.03463.002.jpg
Correspondent:
Frederick Oldach (1823–1907)
was a German bookbinder whose Philadelphia firm bound Whitman's November Boughs (1888) and Complete
Poems & Prose (1888), as well as the special seventieth-birthday
issue of Leaves of Grass (1889).
Notes
- 1. David McKay (1860–1918) took
over Philadelphia-based publisher Rees Welsh's bookselling and publishing
businesses in 1881–82. McKay and Rees Welsh published the 1881 edition of
Leaves of Grass after opposition from the Boston
District Attorney prompted James R. Osgood & Company of Boston, the original publisher,
to withdraw. McKay also went on to publish Specimen Days &
Collect, November Boughs, Gems
from Walt Whitman, Complete Prose Works,
and the final Leaves of Grass, the so-called deathbed edition. For
more information about McKay, see Joel Myerson, "McKay, David (1860–1918)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 2. On November 5, Horace
Traubel noted: "W. explained that while I was away he 'got a very raspy note
from Oldach practically asking that I take my sheets away, saying there was
nothing to him in their being there,' etc. W. now would have Oldach bind up 150
copies more, then fold all rest of the sheets and arrange them for binding,
etc., subject to order. Gave me memorandum letter to that effect" (Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Wednesday, November 5, 1890). See Whitman's November 5, 1890, reply to Oldach. [back]