Title: Walt Whitman to Thomas G. Gentry, 11 February 1884
Date: February 11, 1884
Whitman Archive ID: med.00767
Source: University of Iowa Special Collections and University Archives. The transcription presented here is derived from Ed Folsom, "The Mystical Ornithologist and the Iowa Tufthunter: Two Unpublished Whitman Letters and Some Identifications," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, 1 (June 1983), 18–29. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Stefan Schöberlein, and Nicole Gray
Camden New Jersey
Feb. 11 '84
Dear Sir
I am entirely willing you should print the piece, as you request1—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Thomas Gentry
(1843–1905) was an ornithologist from Philadelphia and had already
published six books by the time he got into contact with Whitman. It appears
that his turn to Whitman coincided with a growing alienation from his
profession. For more on Gentry, see Ed Folsom, "The Mystical Ornithologist and
the Iowa Tufthunter: Two Unpublished Whitman Letters and Some Identifications,"
Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 1:1 (1983),
18–29.
1. See the letter from Gentry to Whitman of February 8, 1884. [back]