Title: Walt Whitman to Edward Carpenter, 2 October [1877]
Date: October 2, 1877
Whitman Archive ID: sta.00004
Source: Miller's transcription is based on a typescript of the letter, held by Stanford University. The transcription presented here is derived from The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 3:100. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alicia Bones, Grace Thomas, Eder Jaramillo, and Kevin McMullen
Camden,
New Jersey,
U. S. A.
Oct 2nd.1
I merely write to say at once that your letter and the postal order have both been safely received. The books (to the addresses given) will be sent immediately. I am well for me. H[erbert] G[ilchrist] is at John B[urroughs]'s on the Hudson. Mrs G[ilchrist] is ill in bed. Harry2 is well.
Thanks and love.
W.W.
1. Whitman noted receipt of $50.12 from Carpenter on this date (The Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). Carpenter sent a letter on September 17 and a post card on September 20 about the book orders from his friends (With Walt Whitman in Camden, ed. Horace Traubel [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1905–1953], 4:204–205). See also Whitman's letter to Edward Carpenter of October 5, 1877). At Whitman's request Carpenter had examined a volume of Augusta Webster (1837–1894), an English poet, and had found her verse commonplace. [back]
2. For an account of Harry's letters to Whitman, see Edwin Haviland Miller, "Introduction," The Correspondence (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 3:1–9. [back]