Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 5 March 1878

Date: March 5, 1878

Whitman Archive ID: med.00684

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), 3:109. 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, Kevin McMullen, Kirsten Clawson, and Nicole Gray




431 Stevens Street
Camden N J
March 5 '78

Dear John Burroughs1

John Swinton lives at 134 east 34th Street. (He is married lately to Mrs Dr Smith)—Yes [J.H.] Johnston's taking part in the lecture enterprise would be perfectly agreeable to me2—the name of the lecture, would be The death of Abraham Lincoln.

(In my last letter among the names proposed was S S Cox,3 M C—I wish that name cancelled)—I should well like to have, if the letter to me is carried out, a real mixture of names, representing the young blood, & all the parties, various professions, (especially as I said, journalists, artists, actors, &c &c—perhaps some women)—

I shall be home here all the following two weeks except next Saturday & Sunday4


Walt Whitman


Notes:

1. Whitman also wrote to Burroughs on February 27 about the New York lecture, and evidently listed the names of possible sponsors. Whitman had been with the Staffords from March 2 to 4 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). [back]

2. In a letter on February 28, 1878, Burroughs asked for Swinton's address and inquired about Johnston. [back]

3. Samuel S. Cox (1828–1889) served in the House of Representatives from New York from 1869 until his death. Burroughs, when asked why Whitman wanted Cox's name deleted, could not recall any reason (Clara Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs—Comrades [Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931], 172). [back]

4. Whitman was with the Staffords again on Saturday and Sunday, March 9 and 10 (Whitman's Commonplace Book). [back]


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