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The Critic
743 BROADWAY
New York
17 March 1887.
Dear Mr. Whitman:
It is said you have received a letter1 from Tennyson,2 lately.
If it refers to your article3 in The Critic, &
isn't personal, would you mind our mentioning the fact?4
Sincerely yours
J B Gilder
Walt Whitman, Esq.
Camden, N.J.
over
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Correspondent:
Joseph Benson Gilder (1858–1936) was, with his
sister Jeannette Leonard Gilder (1849–1916), co-editor of The Critic, a literary magazine.
Notes
- 1. See Tennyson's letter to
Whitman of January 15, 1887. [back]
- 2. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) succeeded
William Wordsworth as poet laureate of Great Britain in 1850. The intense male
friendship described in In Memoriam, which Tennyson wrote
after the death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, possibly influenced Whitman's
poetry. Whitman wrote to Tennyson in 1871 or late 1870, probably shortly after the
visit of Cyril Flower in December, 1870, but the letter is not extant (see Thomas Donaldson,
Walt Whitman the Man [New York: F. P.
Harper, 1896], 223). Tennyson's first letter to Whitman is dated July
12, 1871. Although Tennyson extended an invitation for Whitman
to visit England, Whitman never acted on the offer. [back]
- 3. Whitman's "A Word about
Tennyson" was published in The Critic on January 1,
1887. [back]
- 4. Whitman responded on the
verso of this letter, giving permission for The Critic to
mention the letter from Tennyson, and included prose to use for the notice. On
March 26, under "Notes," The Critic printed Whitman's
suggested paragraph almost verbatim. [back]