Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Walt Whitman to Harry D. Hughes, 12 February 1887

Date: February 12, 1887

Whitman Archive ID: med.00752

Source: The current location of this manuscript is unknown. Our transcription is derived from images made publicly available on the Bonhams auction house web site when this letter came up for sale in 2011. It has since been sold. The Whitman Archive does not have permission to publish these images. 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.

Notes for this letter were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented, updated, or created by Whitman Archive staff as appropriate.

Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schöberlein, Ian Faith, Kevin McMullen, and Stephanie Blalock




328 Mickle Street1
Camden New Jersey
Feb. 12 '87

I have rec'd the Dec. & Feb. numbers of "Leisure Moments" with your friendly articles ab't me, & wish to thank you. They are affectionately appreciated. I thank Edward Stratton Holloway2 for sending them to me.3


Walt Whitman


Correspondent:
Little is known about Harry D. Hughes, but as an envelope with Hughes' address ("3343 North 21th street / Philadelphia / Pa") is extant from March 21, 1888, Whitman might have written to Hughes again at this point or perhaps even met him in person. Hughes was also an author, who published Romances and Studies, a small volume of essays and sketches, in 1889 (Philadelphia: Ideal Publishing Company).

Notes:

1. This postal card is addressed: Harry D. Hughes | 3343 N 21st Street | Philadelphia. It is postmarked: Camden | Feb | 12 | 12 M | 1887 | NJ; Received | Feb | 12 | [illegible] | 1887 | Phila. [back]

2. Edward Stratton Holloway (1859–1939) was a landscape painter and book illustrator from New York. He was apparently a shared acquaintance of Whitman and John H. Johnston, the New York Jeweler. [back]

3. Hughes wrote in superlatives of "Walt Whitman's Prose Works" in Leisure Moments, 11 (February 1887), 17. [back]


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