Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 12 March 1883

Date: March 12, 1883

Whitman Archive ID: med.00656

Source: The location of the manuscript is unknown. Miller's transcription is based on a partial transcript in Clara Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs—Comrades (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 240–241. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 3:331. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schoeberlein, Kirsten Clawson, Nima Najafi Kianfar, and Nicole Gray




March 12, 1883

[Walt Whitman promised to read the Century proof when it arrived and to return it with suggestions.]

Chew on what I said in my last1—the position you occupy in your printed books is just what it should be to last—the paragraph or two of let-up or disclaimer in "Signs and Seasons" is right, too, "for reasons"—let it stand—but nothing further of apology—not a word.


Notes:

1. See the letter from Whitman to Burroughs of February 26, 1883. Burroughs commented on this letter: "In the essay I had overhauled the poets. When I came to put it in book form I modified and excised a little" (Clara Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs—Comrades [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931], 241). [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.