[WW thanks his correspondent for the gift of "Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln."] I shall keep it by me for my own reading, & to refresh my memory of those turbulent days.
Correspondent:
This correspondent may be Francis
Fisher Browne (1843–1913), the author of The Every-Day
Life of Abraham Lincoln (1886). Browne, editor of the literary monthly
The Dial, was familiar with Whitman's work, having
written a review of the 1881-82 edition of Leaves of
Grass. In his biography of Lincoln, Browne reprinted Whitman's poem "O
Captain ! My Captain!" under the title "Walt Whitman's Poem on President
Lincoln's Death." It is possible that Browne sent Whitman a copy of the
biography, to which Whitman is here responding.