The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Thomas B. Harned, 9 June 1889
Date: June 9, 1889
Whitman Archive ID: med.00876
Source: The location of this manuscript is unknown. Edwin Haviland Miller derives his transcription from a transcription in the catalog of Stan V. Henkels, May 8, 1917. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 4:349. 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, Ryan Furlong, and Stephanie Blalock
June 9, 1889
Have had such a good time with the Champagne you sent me, must at least thank [you] for it. I drank the whole bottle (except a little swig I insisted on Ed1 taking for going for it) had it in a big white mug half fill'd with broken ice, it has done me good already (for I was sort of "under the weather" the last 30 hours.)
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Thomas Biggs Harned
(1851–1921) was one of Whitman's literary executors. Harned was a lawyer
in Philadelphia and, having married Augusta Anna Traubel (1856–1914), was
Horace Traubel's brother-in-law. For more on him, see Dena Mattausch, "Harned, Thomas Biggs (1851–1921)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). For more on his relationship with Whitman, see
Thomas Biggs Harned, Memoirs of Thomas B. Harned, Walt
Whitman's Friend and Literary Executor, ed. Peter Van Egmond (Hartford:
Transcendental Books, 1972).
Notes:
1. Edward "Ned" Wilkins (1865–1936) was one of Whitman's nurses during his Camden years; he was sent to Camden from London, Ontario, by Dr. Richard M. Bucke, and he began caring for Whitman on November 5, 1888. He stayed for a year before returning to Canada to attend the Ontario Veterinary School. For more information, see Bert A. Thompson, "Edward Wilkins: Male Nurse to Walt Whitman," Walt Whitman Review 15 (September 1969), 194–195. [back]