The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Edward P. Clark, 13 June 1874
Date: June 13, 1874
Whitman Archive ID: prc.00094
Source: Private collection of Dr. Kendall Reed. A facsimile of the manuscript is in Ted Genoways, "The Correspondence of Walt Whitman: A Third Supplement with Addenda to the Calendar of Letters Written to Whitman," Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 18 (Summer/Fall 2000), 3–59. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Ted Genoways (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004), 7:40. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Jonathan Y. Cheng, Elizabeth Lorang, Nima Najafi Kianfar, and Nicole Gray
431 Stevens st.
cor West. Camden, N.
Jersey
June 13. '74
Edward P. Clark
Dear Sir,
In answer to your note I send enclosed a copy of my poem for Tuft's College on the 17th—which you are at liberty to publish on the 18th.1 I am not well enough to journey to College Hill, but have sent the piece & requested that it be read in its place on the programme, 17th, exactly the same as though I were present—which doubtless will be done.
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Edward P. Clark was the
managing editor of the Springfield Republican. He appears
to have written, in a letter now lost, to Whitman to request permission to
publish the poem, "Song of the Universal," which Whitman was originally
scheduled to deliver before the Mathematician Society of Tufts College on June
17. See the letter from Whitman to J. C. Mann of March
25, 1874.
Notes:
1. Per Whitman's request, "Song of the Universal" appeared in the Springfield Republican on June 18, 1874. [back]