The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 25 January [1879]
Date: January 25, 1879
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00392
Source: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. 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.
Editorial note: The annotation, "1/25/'79 | Locusts & Wild Honey (1879)," is in an unknown hand.
Contributors to digital file: Alicia Bones, Grace Thomas, Anthony Dreesen, Kevin McMullen, and Nicole Gray
 image 1 |  image 2 |  image 3 |  image 4 |
Camden1
Jan 25
Dear John Burroughs
I havn't been able to think of any thing worth while in the way of a name—to my notion Locusts and Wild Honey is the best proposed2—(the Speckled Trout piece suggested to me whether the fish couldn't afford a name for one of your books, for a change)—
—Nothing new with me—I am well, for me—I send you a Phila: paper with a letter3—Cold winter here—
Walt
Notes:
1. This letter is addressed: John Burroughs | Esopus-on-Hudson | New York. It is postmarked: Camden | Jan | 26 | N.J. [back]
2. On January 13 Burroughs wrote to Whitman about the title of his new book, which his publisher did not like. See Clara Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs—Comrades (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 181. [back]
3. "Winter Sunshine. A Trip from Camden to the Coast" appeared in the Philadelphia Times on January 26; it was reprinted by Herbert Bergman in Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, 66 (October 1948), 139–154. See Specimen Days, ed. Floyd Stovall (New York: New York University Press, 1963), 330–338. [back]