The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to William D. O'Connor, 6 August 1888
Date: August 6, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00610
Source: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 4:197. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Ryan Furlong, Stefan Schöberlein, Caterina Bernardini, and Stephanie Blalock
Camden1
Monday PM
Aug: 6 '88
Hot & sweltering weather here now the sixth day—No good news to send you ab't my health—but no bad either—I keep [on?]—sitting up —but have not left my room—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
"The Good Gray Poet," published in 1866 (a digital version of the pamphlet is
available at "The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication"). For more on Whitman's
relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. This letter is endorsed: "Answ'd August 31/88." It is addressed: Wm D O'Connor | 1015 O Street | Washington | D C. It is postmarked: Camden (?) | Aug 6 | 8 PM | 88; Wash. D.C. Transit | Aug 7 | 7 AM | 88. [back]