The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to William D. O'Connor, 3 October 1888
Date: October 3, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00612
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), 4:217–218. 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, Alex Ashland, Ian Faith, and Stephanie Blalock
Camden1
Wednesday Evn'g
Oct: 3 '88
The doctor was here this afternoon & speaks encouragingly but I still keep in my sick room—My books are thro' the electrotyper & printer & are now in the binder2—Soon as ready I shall send you—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
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 Oct. 5, 1888." It is addressed: Wm D O'Connor | 1015 O Street | Washington | D C. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J.| Oct 3 | 8 PM | (?)8; Washington, Rec'd. | Oct 4 | 7 30 AM | 88 | 6. [back]
2. Whitman's Complete Poems and Prose was mostly printed in October but not bound until December. [back]