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Walt Whitman to Mrs. Henry A. Blood, 9 July 1869

About This Item

  • Title: Walt Whitman to Mrs. Henry A. Blood, 9 July 1869
  • Date: July 9, 1869
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: med.00696
  • Source: The location of this manuscript is unknown. Genoways's transcription is derived from the auction catalog of the Robert H. Kuhn Collection by Pacific Book Auction Galleries (Auction 129, item 188), March 20, 1997. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Ted Genoways (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004), 30. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Contributors to digital file: Jonathan Y. Cheng Elizabeth Lorang Nima Najafi Kianfar Alex Kinnaman Nicole Gray
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to Mrs. Henry A. Blood, 9 July 1869." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 25 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: med.00696.xml (TEI)
ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE Washington.July 9, 1869 Dear Mrs. Blood,1

I send you the picture according to promise.2 There is nothing very new or special at the house since you left—nor with me either. I am writing this at my desk in the Attorney General's office, by a great open window, looking south, away down the Potomac, & across to Virginia, along Arlington Heights. . . .

Walt Whitman

Correspondent:
Marie Blood was the wife of Henry A. Blood, a clerk in the Internal Revenue Service (see Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, ed. Edward F. Grier [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 2:846).

Notes

  • 1. Blood's address was noted by Whitman as New Ipswich, NH (see Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, ed. Edward F. Grier [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 2:844). [back]
  • 2. The letter was auctioned with an "original cabinet portrait photograph of Whitman," presumably the enclosed picture mentioned here. [back]
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