The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Thomas W. H. Rolleston to Walt Whitman, 1 September 1888
Date: September 1, 1888
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00431
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.
Contributors to digital file: Jeannette Schollaert, Alex Ashland, Ian Faith, and Stephanie Blalock
 image 1 |  image 2 |
Sept. 1.1
Delgany.
Ireland.
Yesterday 1st instalment of proof sheets of German L. of G. reached me — thought you might be glad to hear this. Please send a line to Dr. Knortz2 if you know his present address, & ask him to tell me if proofs have been sent to him also. I should like him to see them before final printing.
Yours
T.W. Rolleston.
Correspondent:
Thomas William Hazen Rolleston
(1857–1920) was an Irish poet and journalist. After attending college in
Dublin, he moved to Germany for a period of time. He wrote to Whitman
frequently, beginning in 1880, and later produced with Karl Knortz the first
book-length translation of Whitman's poetry into German. In 1889, the collection
Grashalme: Gedichte [Leaves of
Grass: Poems] was published by Verlags-Magazin in Zurich, Switzerland.
See Walter Grünzweig, Constructing the German Walt Whitman (Iowa
City: University of Iowa Press, 1995). For more information on Rolleston, see
Walter Grünzweig, "Rolleston, Thomas William Hazen (1857–1920)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. This letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle St. | Camden | United States. New Jersey. It is postmarked: Delgany | C | S [illegible] 1 | 88; [illegible] | C | SE 1 | 88; [illegible] | C | SE 1 | 88; Camden | Sep | 9 | 1 P M | 1888 | Rec'd. [back]
2. Karl Knortz (1841–1918) was born in Prussia and came to the U.S. in 1863. He was the author of many books and articles on German-American affairs and was superintendent of German instruction in Evansville, Ind., from 1892 to 1905. See The American-German Review 13 (December 1946), 27–30. His first published criticism of Whitman appeared in the New York Staats-Zeitung Sonntagsblatt on December 17, 1882, and he worked with Thomas W. H. Rolleston on the first book-length translation of Whitman's poetry, published as Grashalme in 1889. For more information about Knortz, see Walter Grünzweig, "Knortz, Karl (1841–1918)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]