Walt Whitman to William D. O'Connor, 22 April 1889

About This Item

Title: Walt Whitman to William D. O'Connor, 22 April 1889
Date: April 22, 1889
Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00680
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), 324. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Ashland Caterina Bernardini Brandon James O'Neil Stephanie Blalock
Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to William D. O'Connor, 22 April 1889." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 18 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: nyp.00680.xml (TEI)

Camden1 April 22 '89

Decidedly the best news to-day is the saving of the wreck'd Danmark's 750 passengers & crew2—out from the very jaws of death!

Fine sunny weather here—Every thing continuing on the same with me—Letter from Dr B[ucke].3 He has rec'd the S[tedman]4 letter & likes it well—I am entirely pleased with the presentation (selections & portrait) S makes of me—

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: Camden (?) | Apr 2(?) | 8 P(?) | 89. [back]
2. On April 22, 1889 the New-York Tribune reported that the nearly 700 passengers aboard the Danmark had been rescued by the steamship Missouri. See Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Monday, April 22, 1889. [back]
3. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany. Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
4. Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908) was a man of diverse talents. He edited for a year the Mountain County Herald at Winsted, Connecticut, wrote "Honest Abe of the West," presumably Lincoln's first campaign song, and served as correspondent of the New York World from 1860 to 1862. In 1862 and 1863 he was a private secretary in the Attorney General's office until he entered the firm of Samuel Hallett and Company in September, 1863. The next year he opened his own brokerage office. He published many volumes of poems and was an indefatigable compiler of anthologies, among which were Poets of America, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885) and A Library of American Literature from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, 11 vols. (New York: C. L. Webster, 1889–90). For more, see Donald Yannella, "Stedman, Edmund Clarence (1833–1908)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]