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Mary Ashley to Walt Whitman, 17 December 1891

About This Item

  • Title: Mary Ashley to Walt Whitman, 17 December 1891
  • Date: December 17, 1891
  • Creator(s): Mary Ashley
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.08200
  • 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.
  • Contributors to digital file: Ethan Heusser Cristin Noonan Alex Ashland Stephanie Blalock Amanda J. Axley
  • Cite this page: Ashley, Mary. "Mary Ashley to Walt Whitman, 17 December 1891." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 13 December 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.08200.xml (TEI)
 loc_zs.00614.jpg 16 New King Street Bath England1 December 17. 1891 My dear sir,

Having seen by a paragraph in the Pall Mall Gazette that some of your books can be obtained from you, I write to you for I should like to have some of those that are mentioned. First I wish to have the new one, Goodbye, My Fancy.2  loc_zs.00615.jpg There it is mentioned that there is a "small Leaves of Grass, latest date, with 6 portraits, Morocco bound."3

This I should like to have very much. The edition which I now have of Leaves of Grass is that of 1881 called "author's copyright ed." published by David Bogue, London. I also have in a separate pamphlet, Preface to original edition  loc_zs.00616.jpg 1855. But the small edition of the book that you now have would be greatly prized by me.

As I do not know the prices of either it or the new one, I am sending you by POO £ 1. and if there is anything further to pay, I will remit it immediately on hearing from you. I would like also to know what price is the other book mentioned in the newspaper, a large volume of Complete  loc_zs.00617.jpg Poems & Prose, 1000 pages4 & whether it contains anything more than is contained in Specimen Days & Leaves of Grass. My edition of Specimen Days is 1883 by Wilson5 Glasgow, with a photograph.

I cannot write without saying how greatly I value and care for your writings. I have done so for many years, & I always watch with greatest interest for any  loc_zs.00618.jpg news of you in the Pall Mall Gazette.

Your most beautiful poems on Death in Leaves of Grass appeal very strongly to me, but this is only singling out one series in that most beautiful book. Many beside these are very precious to me.

I wish you most earnestly every Blessing that the New Year can bring you, loc_zs.00619.jpg & peace & freedom from suffering. Peace, the truest Blessing, any of us can enjoy, & a happy looking forward to a fuller happiness in the New Life, when the Spirit can live its true life of joyous vigour unhindered.

I remain with true esteem dear sir  loc_zs.00620.jpg Yours sincerely Mary Ashley

I have November Boughs6

Address Miss Ashley 16 New King Street Bath England

 loc_zs.00621.jpg sent poem Jan 9 1892 see note Feb 3 1892 wrote her 2/2/92  loc_zs.00622.jpg

Correspondent:
Mary Ashley (c. 1843–1903) was a self-taught astronomer and a member of the Selenographical Society and the Liverpool Astronomical Society. She may have owned her own observatory and apparently garnered some international attention for her scientific drawings (A. J. Kinder, "Letter to the Editor: Another Victorian Lady Astronomer," Journal of the British Astronomical Association 108 [1998], 338).

Notes

  • 1. This letter is addressed: Mr Walt Whitman | Camden | New Jersey | U S America. It is postmarked: Bath | J 1 | DE 18 | 91; Camden, N.J. | Dec 29 | 6 AM | 91 | Rec'd.; New York | Dec | 28; D | 91; Paid | E | All. [back]
  • 2. Whitman's book Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) was his last miscellany, and it included both poetry and short prose works commenting on poetry, aging, and death, among other topics. Thirty-one poems from the book were later printed as "Good-Bye my Fancy" in Leaves of Grass (1891–1892), the last edition of Leaves of Grass published before Whitman's death in March 1892. For more information see, Donald Barlow Stauffer, "'Good-Bye my Fancy' (Second Annex) (1891)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
  • 3. Whitman had a special pocket-book edition printed in honor of his 70th birthday, May 31, 1889, through special arrangement with Frederick Oldach. Only 300 copies were printed, and Whitman signed the title page of each one. The volume also included the annex Sands at Seventy and his essay A Backward Glance O'er Traveled Roads. See Whitman's May 16, 1889, letter to Oldach. For more information on the book see Ed Folsom, Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman: A Catalog and Commentary (University of Iowa: Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, 2005). [back]
  • 4. Whitman's "big book" is a reference to his Complete Poems and Prose of Walt Whitman (1888). Whitman published the book himself—in an arrangement with the Philadephia publisher David McKay, who allowed Whitman to use the plates for both Leaves of Grass and Specimen Days—in December 1888. [back]
  • 5. Frederick W. Wilson was a member of the Glasgow firm of Wilson & McCormick that published the 1883 British edition of Specimen Days and Collect. [back]
  • 6. Whitman's November Boughs—a book of prose and poetry—was published in 1888 by David McKay. The book included a long prefatory essay, "A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads," a collection of sixty short poems under the title "Sands at Seventy," and reprints of several articles already published elsewhere. For more information on November Boughs, see James E. Barcus Jr., "November Boughs [1888]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
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