Camden—
Sunday afternoon
Oct: 8 '82 1
Never have we had a week of more perfect, sunny, fresh, yet mellow and rich, autumn
weather—to-day is the eighth day of it—("In this resplendent
summer" began Emerson 25 years ago in an autumn lecture, "it has been a luxury merely to live")2—I suppose
you have rec'd the "Specimen Days" I sent a while since3—I am well as usual—reeling out my weeks & months about the same
as ever—often think of you all—the books are selling quite well4—
W. W.
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Mrs: Anne Gilchrist | Keats' Corner 12 Well Road | Hampstead | London England.
It is postmarked: Camden | Oct | 8 | 6 PM | N.J.; Philadelphia | Oct | 8 | 1882
| Pa. [back]
- 2. See the first sentence of
The Divinity School Address (1838): "In this
refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life." [back]
- 3. Whitman sent two copies
to Anne Gilchrist on October 5 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg
Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.). Herbert referred to the book on October (?) 20, and Anne
Gilchrist described her reactions to the work on November 24. [back]
- 4. Because the records of
David McKay, successor to Rees Welsh & Co. as Whitman's publisher, are now
in the University of Pennsylvania Library, exact figures on sales are available
until the poet's death. As of December 1, 1882, 4,900 copies of Leaves of Grass had been printed, of which 3,118 were
sold. Whitman's royalty was $1,091.30. Only 1,000 copies of Specimen Days were printed and 925 copies sold; the
return to Whitman was $203.50—a total of $1,294.80. Because
Whitman owed McKay money, the actual return was $1,230.78 (Whitman's
Commonplace Book). [back]