The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Charles Aldrich to Walt Whitman, 18 November 1889
Date: November 18, 1889
Whitman Archive ID: loc.08328
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: Cristin Noonan, Amanda J. Axley, Marie Ernster, Tara Ballard, and Stephanie Blalock
 image 1 |  image 2 |
I1 have looked so long for that autograph copy of "My Captain,"2 for "a place of honor," in my collection in the Iowa State Library!3 Are there any terms upon which you will kindly send it—signed & dated?
Faithfully yours
Charles Aldrich
Webster City, Iowa
Nov 18, 1889.
Correspondent:
Charles Aldrich
(1828–1908) was an ornithologist, a member of the Iowa House of
Representatives, an infantry captain in the Civil War, and founder of the Iowa
Historical Department. He was also an avid autograph collector, especially of
Whitman's. He was so eager that the poet termed him "a very hungry man . . .
never satisfied—is always crying for more and more" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, August 20, 1889). Aldrich visited Whitman at his Camden home
numerous times, and he served as a conduit between the poet and William Michael
Rossetti in England, who edited the first British edition of Whitman's work. For
more information, see Ed Folsom, "The Mystical Ornithologist and the Iowa
Tufthunter: Two Unpublished Whitman Letters and Some Identifications," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 1 (1983),
18–29.
Notes:
1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman, | Mickle street, | Camden, N.J.. It is postmarked: CAMDEN, N.J. | NOV | 21 | 6AM | 1889 | REC'D. There is a third postmark, but only the date of Nov 18 | 1889 is visible. [back]
2. Aldrich wanted an autograph copy of Whitman's poem "O Captain! My Captain!." The poem, an elegy for Abraham Lincoln, was one of Whitman's most popular, although it was atypical of his verse and style (the rhyme, meter, stanza and refrain are conventional, and the poem makes use of traditional metaphors). "O Captain! My Captain!" was first published in The New-York Saturday Press on November 4, 1865, and it was reprinted in Sequel to Drum-Taps (1865–1866). For more information on the poem, see Gregory Eiselein, "'O Captain! My Captain!' [1865]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
3. Whitman eventually did furnish Aldrich with a manuscript copy of "O Captain!," for which Aldrich sent the poet $5. Whitman signed the manuscript copy "with best wishes prayers & love for the people of Iowa." The manuscript is still on display at the State Historical Building in Des Moines. See Ed Folsom, "The Mystical Ornithologist and the Iowa Tufthunter: Two Unpublished Whitman Letters and Some Identifications," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 1 (1983), 18–29. [back]