The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: William Michael Rossetti to Walt Whitman, 11 January 1886
Date: January 11, 1886
Whitman Archive ID: loc.03612
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.
Editorial note: The annotation, " recd Jan: 25 '86 ￡33.16.6," is in the hand of Walt Whitman.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Stefan Schöberlein, Ian Faith, Kyle Barton, and Nicole Gray
 image 1 |  image 2 |  image 3 |  image 4 |
5 ENDSLEIGH GARDENS.
N.W.
11 Jany/86.
Dear Whitman,
This note is written beforehand, in expectation of my paying-in tomorrow at a Post-Office the ￡33.16.6. wh. I named to you in my recent letter.1 The postal order, on my obtaining it, will be enclosed herein, & dispatched to you. Since the date of my last something further has come in: it will be accounted for at a future opportunity.
On 13 Jany I expect to leave London, & stay some four weeks with my family at the Clarendon Hotel, Ventnor, I. of Wight.
Yours with affectionate regard,
W. M. Rossetti
Correspondent:
William Michael Rossetti (1829–1915), brother
of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, was an English editor and a champion of
Whitman's work. In 1868 Rossetti edited Whitman's Poems,
selected from the 1867 Leaves of Grass. Whitman referred
to Rossetti's edition as a "horrible dismemberment of my book" in his August 12, 1871, letter to F.S. Ellis. Nonetheless,
the edition provided a major boost to Whitman's reputation, and Rossetti would
remain a staunch supporter for the rest of Whitman's life, drawing in
subscribers to the 1876 Leaves of Grass and fundraising
for Whitman in England. For more on Whitman's relationship with Rossetti, see
Sherwood Smith, "Rossetti, William Michael (1829–1915)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).