The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to James W. Wallace, 10 February 1891
Date: February 10, 1891
Whitman Archive ID: loc.07886
Source: Henry S. Saunders Collection of Walt Whitman Papers, 1899–1913, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The transcription presented here is derived from The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 5:164. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Ian Faith, Cristin Noonan, and Stephanie Blalock
Camden N J—U S America
Feb: 10 '911
It is sunset & growing dark but I tho't w'd write you just a line—Nothing new or notable with me—rather bad times, but have eaten my supper, & am sitting here in fair trim—that is might be much worse—God bless you
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
James William Wallace
(1853–1926), of Bolton, England, was an architect and great admirer of
Whitman. Wallace, along with Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927), a physician in
Bolton, founded the "Bolton College" of English admirers of the poet. Johnston
and Wallace corresponded with Whitman and with Horace Traubel and other members
of the Whitman circle in the United States, and they separately visited the poet
and published memoirs of their trips in John Johnston and James William Wallace,
Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–1891 by Two
Lancashire Friends (London: Allen and Unwin, 1917). For more
information on Wallace, see Larry D. Griffin, "Wallace, James William (1853–1926)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. This postal card is addressed: JW Wallace | Anderton near Chorley | Lancashire | England. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Feb 10 | 8 PM | 91. [back]