Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: James Gordon Bennett to Walt Whitman, 7 April 1888

Date: April 7, 1888

Whitman Archive ID: loc.07524

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: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Alex Ashland, and Stephanie Blalock



page image
image 1
page image
image 2


The Herald,
New York,
April 7 1888

Dear M. Whitman,

Your account was referred to the cashier and you have probably heard from him before this. We have published every poem received from you1 and were not aware that any had been omitted. Please send us ten more for this month.2

Very Truly,
James Gordon Bennett3
J.C.


Correspondent:
James Gordon Bennett Jr. (1841–1918) was the publisher of the New York Herald, which had been founded by his father in 1835. For more on the paper and the many poems by Whitman that were published in it, see Susan Belasco, "The New York Herald."

Notes:

1. In late 1887, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., editor of the New York Herald, invited Whitman to contribute a series of poems and prose pieces for the paper. From December 1887 through August 1888, 33 of Whitman's poems appeared. [back]

2. Whitman was paid $40 by the New York Herald for his April contributions. See the letter from James Gordon Bennett of the Herald to Whitman of May 4, 1888[back]

3. This letter has been crossed out with a vertical line in black ink. [back]


Comments?

Published Works | In Whitman's Hand | Life & Letters | Commentary | Resources | Pictures & Sound

Support the Archive | About the Archive

Distributed under a Creative Commons License. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price, editors.