Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Walt Whitman to James R. Osgood, 1 June 1881

Date: June 1, 1881

Whitman Archive ID: tex.00420

Source: T. E. Hanley Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 3:227–228. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schoeberlein, Nima Najafi Kianfar, Eder Jaramillo, and Nicole Gray




431 Stevens Street
Camden New Jersey
June 1 '81

My dear Mr Osgood

Yours of May 31 just rec'd—Thanking you warmly for willingness, promptness, &c. my terms are:

25 cts on every copy sold if the retail price is put at $2

30 cts on every copy sold if the retail price is put at $2.501

If these suit you the bargain is settled—you shall be fully fortified as sole publisher with all legal authority—& you can act accordingly in England—If they do not suit no harm done—the thing is off—but with perfect good feeling left on both sides.


Walt Whitman


Notes:

1. This was Whitman's counterproposal to Osgood's offer of ten per cent. The publisher accepted Whitman's terms on June 3[back]


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