The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Jacob Klein, 10 September 1888
Date: September 10, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: med.00856
Source: The location of this manuscript is unknown. Edwin Haviland Miller derives his description of the letter from a description published in a catalog of the Samuel T. Freeman & Company of May 3, 1921 (?). The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 4:207. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Alex Ashland, Breanna Himschoot, and Stephanie Blalock
Camden
September 10, 1888
[WW informed Klein that he was sending Leaves of Grass and Two Rivulets.]1
Correspondent:
Jacob Klein (1845–?) attended
Harvard Law School and graduated in 1871. He practiced law in St. Louis until
1881, when he formed a partnership with William E. Fisse, and remained with
their firm—Klein & Fisse—until 1899, when he was elected as a
judge in the Circuit Court of Saint Louis. He continued his work as a judge
unitil 1901. For more information on Klein, see "Jacob Klein," The Book of Missourians: The Achievements and Personnel of Notable Living
Men and Women of Missouri in the Opening Decade of the Twenteith
Century, M. L. Van Nada, ed. (St. Louis: T. J. Steele & Co.,
Publishers, 1906), 201–202.
Notes:
1. On September 1, 1888, Klein, a St. Louis lawyer, wrote to William Sloane Kennedy to inquire whether he should write directly to Whitman in order to obtain the 1876 edition of Leaves of Grass. Kennedy forwarded the letter to Whitman, who wrote "ans'd" on Klein's note. See also Whitman's September 17, 1888, letter to Klein. [back]