Walt Whitman to William Sloane Kennedy, 13 May 1889

About This Item

Title: Walt Whitman to William Sloane Kennedy, 13 May 1889
Date: May 13, 1889
Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Whitman Archive ID: owu.00011
Source: The Bayley-Whitman Collection, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

Notes for this letter were created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.
Contributors to digital file: Blake Bronson-Bartlett Alex Ashland Breanna Himschoot Stephanie Blalock
Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to William Sloane Kennedy, 13 May 1889." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 24 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: owu.00011.xml (TEI)

owu.00011.001.jpg Camden p m May 13 '891

yr's rec'd to-day—our friend2 has no doubt been buried by this time—his death hour was peaceful—I think he must have been unconscious for a good while previous—the face & all look'd peaceful & beautiful in death—Traubel3 has sent a short piece ab't him to the Critic4—I will send you (or word of) all I hear or get.

—I have been out to-day noon in wheel chair5 to the river shore as secluded as I c'd find & staid over half an hour—

W W

owu.00011.002.jpg p 161 Ksch | p 63 Kennedy

Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy (1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman, in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was "too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February 1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Notes

1. This postal card is addressed: Sloane Kennedy | Belmont | Mass:. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | May 14 | 8 PM | 89. [back]
2. 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). [back]
3. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919) was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations, which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914). After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel, see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
4. The Critic declined Traubel's obituary notice for O'Connor, and printed what Whitman called a "tame" one on May 18, 1889 (see Whitman's letter to Richard Maurice Bucke on May 20, 1889), which included extracts from O'Connor's letters to the magazine. [back]
5. Horace Traubel and Ed Wilkins, Whitman's nurse, went to Philadelphia to purchase a wheeled chair for the poet that would allow him to be "pull'd or push'd" outdoors. See Whitman's letter to William Sloane Kennedy of May 8, 1889. [back]