The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Ernest Rhys, 20 March 1886
Date: March 20, 1886
Whitman Archive ID: pri.00010
Source: Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special
Collections, Princeton University Library. 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 derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented, updated, or created by Whitman Archive staff as appropriate.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schöberlein, Kyle Barton, and Nicole Gray
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328 Mickle street
Camden New Jersey U S America
March 20 1886
My dear Ernest Rhys
Thank you for the little volumes—three copies have reached me1—they look very well, & I am pleased with them, & with prefatory notice—I am here, ab't the same as of late years—Keep up pretty good spirits & buoyancy—that makes the best of it all—Give my respects to the Walter Scott folk—& dont forget to write to me soon, to let me know how the Vol. goes—I much hope to reach the working men, & guilds of the British Islands—especially the young fellows—& trust the W. S. vol. will forward that object.
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
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).
Notes:
1. Leaves of Grass: The Poems of Walt Whitman [Selected], with an introduction by Rhys, was printed in 1886 in The Canterbury Poet Series, published by Walter Scott. Whitman noted receipt of the volumes on March 18 in his Commonplace Book (Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). A presentation copy in the Feinberg Collection reads: "Walt Whitman with Ernest Rhys's apologies & high regards. 1st March 1886." On May 22 Rhys informed the poet that about 8,000 copies of the edition were sold, and that the publisher expected to print a second edition. In the same letter Rhys requested permission to include Specimen Days in a prose series called The Camelot Classics. [back]