The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to David McKay, 18 December 1886
Date: December 18, 1886
Whitman Archive ID: med.00772
Source: The location of this manuscript is unknown. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Ted Genoways (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004), 7:84. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schöberlein, Ian Faith, Kyle Barton, and Nicole Gray
Received from David McKay, 18th December, 1886, One Hundred and Twenty 01 | 100 Dollars, for royalties on my books for the last year.
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
David McKay (1860–1918) took
over Philadelphia-based publisher Rees Welsh's bookselling and publishing
businesses in 1881–2. McKay and Rees Welsh published the 1881 edition of
Leaves of Grass after opposition from the Boston
District Attorney prompted James R. Osgood & Company of Boston, the
publisher Whitman had originally contracted with for publication of the volume,
to withdraw. McKay also went on to publish Specimen Days &
Collect, November Boughs, Gems
from Walt Whitman, and Complete Prose Works. For
more information about McKay, see Joel Myerson, "McKay, David (1860–1918)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).