The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to the Editor of The Critic, 15 December [1886]
Date: December 15, 1886
Whitman Archive ID: prc.00033
Source: The Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 4:58. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schöberlein, Kyle Barton, and Nicole Gray
Camden
Wednesday Evn'g Dec. 15
I think I should like to write a bit about Tennyson & the new Locksley Hall, &c:1—intended for your first page if you wish—ab't the usual length of my pieces—Will probably send it to you by or before Sunday next—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
The editor of the Critic from 1881 to 1906 was Jeannette Leonard Gilder
(1849–1916), who wrote that "one of the things of which I am most proud is
that the Critic was the first publication of its class to
invite Walt Whitman to contribute to its pages" (Charles N. Elliot, Walt Whitman as Man, Poet, and Friend [Boston: Richard G.
Badger, The Gorham Press, 1915], 97). She was assisted in her editorial work by
her brother Joseph Benson Gilder (1858–1936). For more, see Susan L.
Roberson, "Gilder, Jeannette L. (1849–1916)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. "A Word about Tennyson" appeared in the Critic on January 1, 1887. See also Whitman's letter to the editors of the Critic on December 1886. According to an endorsement by Jeannette L. Gilder on May 19, 1902, this letter was in her possession at that time. [back]