328 Mickle Street
Camden New Jersey1
For the present send Ernest Rhys's2 letters addressed here
to my care3—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
In all likelihood, "L. Logan
Smith" is Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946), an essayist and literary
critic. He was the son of Robert Pearsall Smith, a minister and writer who
befriended Whitman, and he was the brother of Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, one
of Whitman's most avid followers. For more information on Logan, see Christina
Davey, "Smith, Logan Pearsall (1865–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
(not in Whitman's hand): L Logan Smith | 507 S. Broad St. | Phila. Pa. It is
postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Dec 22 | 6 AM | 87. [back]
- 2. Ernest Percival Rhys
(1859–1946) was a British author and editor; he founded the Everyman's
Library series of inexpensive reprintings of popular works. He included a volume
of Whitman's poems in the Canterbury Poets series and two volumes of Whitman's
prose in the Camelot series for Walter Scott publishers. For more information
about Rhys, see Joel Myerson, "Rhys, Ernest Percival (1859–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. In his Commonplace Book
(Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919,
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.), Whitman noted on December 22 the arrival
of Rhys, who had Christmas dinner with the poet, with the lawyer and Whitman's
literary executor Thomas Harned (and his family), and with Whitman's biographer
and literary executor Horace Traubel (and his family). [back]