The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Rudolf Schmidt, 11 August [1876]
Date: August 11, 1876
Whitman Archive ID: rlc.00015
Source: The Royal Library of Copenhagen. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 3:54–55. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang, Ashley Lawson, Zachary King, and Eric Conrad
431 Stevens st
Camden, N. Jersey—U. S.
America
Aug 111
Yours2 of July 24 rec'd , also your previous one six weeks before—I wrote to you two months ago3—also sent papers—I send paper, also my War Memoranda &c by same mail as this—same address (is it right?)—I remain much the same—bad spells enough—I congratulate you both—love to both—
W.W.
Notes:
1. This letter's envelope is addressed, "Rudolf Schmidt | 16 Klareboderne | Copenhagen | Denmark." It is postmarked: "(?)| Aug | 11 | N.J.; New York | Aug | 12." [back]
2. Rudolf Schmidt, a Dane and editor of For Idé og Virkelighed, is credited with introducing Walt Whitman to Scandinavia by quoting translated passages from Leaves of Grass in a 1872 essay in his magazine. He wrote to Walt Whitman on October 19, 1871: "I intend to write an article about yourself and your writings in the above named periodical which is very much read in all the Scandinavian countries. ... I therefore take the liberty to ask you, if you should not be willing to afford some new communications of yourself and your poetry to this purpose" (The Library of Congress). [back]
3. On July 24, 1876, Schmidt reported his recent marriage to "my dear faithful little wife, to whom I have been betrothed since some years." The letter written "six weeks before" may be Schmidt's letter of April 18, 1876, in which he admitted his failure to sell Walt Whitman's books in Denmark. Walt Whitman's reply, probably written late in May or early in June 1876, is not known. [back]