The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to William D. O'Connor, 26 March 1889
Date: March 26, 1889
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00665
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 The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 4:311. 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, Caterina Bernardini, Alex Ashland, and Stephanie Blalock
Camden
March 26 '891
Have been hoping all day I sh'd get some word & relieving word from you—but nothing—Can only write my sympathy & hope & love—& write on in the dark. Nothing new with me—Sitting here seeking to while away the hours—
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 addressed: Wm D O'Connor | 1015 O Street N W | Washington | D C. It is postmarked: Philadelphia (?) | Mar 26 | 11 PM | 89; Washington, R(?) | Mar 27 | 7 AM | 89 | 7. [back]