Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 24 February 1878

Date: February 24, 1878

Whitman Archive ID: med.00678

Source: The current location of this manuscript is unknown. The transcription presented here is derived from The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1964), 3:108. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang, Alicia Bones, Grace Thomas, Anthony Dreesen, Kevin McMullen, Kirsten Clawson, and Nicole Gray




431 Stevens Street
Camden N J
Feb 24 '78

Dear J B1

I am agreeable to the Lecture project—if it could be well put through—About the middle of April (the anniversary of the eve or night of Lincoln's murder) might be a good night—Every thing would depend on how it was fixed up & prepared for & put through—Let me hear more particulars—I could be ready to splurge April 14th or 15th—

I am well, considering—in good flesh, appetite & trim generally—Only return'd last night from a long jaunt & absence down at my secluded creek—

Write me immediately, & I will you—

I am thoroughly willing & agreeable—

Yours as always
Walt Whitman


Notes:

1. On February 3, 1878, John Burroughs informed Whitman that Richard Watson Gilder wanted to organize a "benefit" in New York at which the poet was to lecture on Lincoln (see also the letter from Whitman to Burroughs of March 11, 1878). Burroughs suggested that Stedman and Swinton should be invited to support the project. Whitman wrote on the envelope of Burroughs's letter: "(first suggestion of lecture)." [back]


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