Camden America1
March 8 '87
Have rec'd to-day yours of Feb. 21.2
Send you herewith a little Preface3 to "Specimen Days"4—it might make two pages—
Send me three or four slip impressions
when in type—Yes, you can retain the Edgar Poe lines on p 17 as you
wish—& in brief (having no doubt you will remember what I have said or
suggested) I hereby empower you to make any arrangements or ways the publishing
exigencies there or your own judgment require—
I will probably send a short MS to be added on p 199 or p 200 to bring my diary up
(or nearly up) to date—Something possibly also to the 2d Vol.—giving
both books a touch (at any rate) of original identity &
fulness—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Ernest Percival Rhys
(1859–1946) was a British author and editor; he founded the Everyman's
Library series of inexpensive reprintings of popular works. He included a volume
of Whitman's poems in the Canterbury Poets series and two volumes of Whitman's
prose in the Camelot series for Walter Scott publishers. For more information
about Rhys, see Joel Myerson, "Rhys, Ernest Percival (1859–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Ernest Rhys | 59 Cheyne Walk | Chelsea | London | England. It is postmarked:
Camden | Mar | 8 | 6 PM | 1887 | N.J.; London S.W. | [illegible] | Mr 18 [illegible] | 87. [back]
- 2. The letter appears to be
lost. [back]
- 3. Included with this letter
is the Preface, reprinted in November Boughs
(Philadelphia: David McKay, 1888), 93–94. According to a letter dated May
23, 1889, Rhys offered Harry Buxton Forman a number of Whitman manuscripts
including "'Specimen Days & Collect' with Whitman's corrections in
ink-pencil"; the price was £2.2s. [back]
- 4. Whitman had sent the copy
of Specimen Days on February 2, 1887 (Whitman's
Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman,
1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). On February 15, 1887 Rhys wrote: "I must not decide
off-hand about the Specimen Days,—that is, whether
to make two vols. as you suggest, or to try & get the whole into one. In the
latter case, the book would be rather crowded. . . No! I would not think of
putting the copy of Specimen Days with your corrections
into the printers' hands and will get copies from Wilson of Glasgow, carefully
following all your deletions & so on. It is one of the greatest prizes I
possess, & someday a sense of its value will inspire me, I'm afraid, to beg
you to send me a copy of Leaves of Grass too with your
name in it, (& mine, as proof of ownership,) & some further inscription
as well." On January 19, 1887 Rhys wrote at length
about a kind of epiphany which he had experienced at the seashore; Whitman
termed it "a wonderful letter." [back]