The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Peter Bolger, [29 May 1884]
Date: May 29, 1884
Whitman Archive ID: loc.04980
Source: Draft letter in 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: Stefan Schöberlein, Kyle Barton, and Nicole Gray
 image 1 |  image 2 |
My Dear Bolger
Here is an article I have reeled off for you if you want it
your telegram recd yesterday too late. [illegible] for the paper [illegible]1
Correspondent:
Peter Bolger (1852–1929) was
a reporter for the Philadelphia Times and, later, for the
Philadelphia Register. According to a notation in
Whitman's Commonplace Book, the poet met Bolger in December 1878.
Notes:
1. This draft letter has been crossed out, and the paper is torn, leaving much of the letter missing. On the back, Whitman wrote a series of notes about adding portraits to Leaves of Grass and Specimen Days. Edwin Haviland Miller bases the date of the letter on a transcript in Stan V. Henkel's Catalog (February 26, 1912). He summarizes the content of the letter as follows: "WW sent a publicity release entitled 'Walt Whitman's Birthday,' referring to his sixty-fifth anniversary, for insertion in the Philadelphia Times on Saturday, May 31." [back]