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Walt Whitman to John Addington Symonds, 20 June 1886

About This Item

  • Title: Walt Whitman to John Addington Symonds, 20 June 1886
  • Date: June 20, 1886
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.04965
  • 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 created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.
  • Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schöberlein Kyle Barton
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to John Addington Symonds, 20 June 1886." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 03 June 2026. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.04965.xml (TEI)
 loc_vm.02229_large.jpg  loc_vm.02230_large.jpg from 328 Mickle street Camden New Jersey U S America1 June 20 1886 My dear Sir

I write a line to introduce & authenticate a valued personal & literary friend of mine, Wm Sloane Kennedy, who will send you this. He is every way friendly & rapport with "Leaves of Grass" & with me.

Walt Whitman

Correspondent:
John Addington Symonds (1840–1893), a prominent biographer, literary critic, and poet in Victorian England, was author of the seven-volume history Renaissance in Italy, as well as Walt Whitman—A Study (1893), and a translator of Michelangelo's sonnets. But in the smaller circles of the emerging upper-class English homosexual community, he was also well known as a writer of homoerotic poetry and a pioneer in the study of homosexuality, or sexual inversion as it was then known. See Andrew C. Higgins, "Symonds, John Addington [1840–1893]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Notes

  • 1. This letter is addressed: John Addington Symonds | Am Hof Davos | Platz Graubünden | Switzerland. [back]
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