Title: Walt Whitman to John Fraser, 27 November 1878
Date: November 27, 1878
Whitman Archive ID: loc.05276
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1969), 5:305–306. 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, Kirsten Clawson, Nima Najafi Kianfar, and Nicole Gray
431 Stevens Street
Camden New Jersey
U S America
Nov
27 '78
Dear Sir
Mr Child tells me you would like a piece from me for the Tobacco Plant.1 Will this do? The price is $12—(? two pounds eight shil)—
If you print it I hope you have a good proof reader, & that he will be very particular with it—
Walt Whitman
Also please send me three copies, & direct a copy each to
P S—I am not an anti-tobacconist—On the contrary have seen how important & valuable the sedative was in the extensive military hospitals of our Secession war—Still I do not smoke or chew myself—Sometimes wish I did smoke now in my old age & invalidism—but it is too late to learn—
But my brothers & all my near friends are smokers, & I am accustomed to it—live among smokers, & always carry cigars in my pocket to give special friends who prize them—
1. "Three Young Men's Death" appeared in Cope's Tobacco Plant, 2 (April 1879), 318–319. See also the letter from Whitman to John Burroughs of December 12, 1878. [back]
2. At this point there was an endorsement: "6 to each sent 15/4/79." [back]