Skip to main content

Walt Whitman to Karl Knortz, 10 January 1884

Dear Sir

Yes, I have rec'd​ the Dresden pamphlet1—I enclose you a late article of mine from the Critic2—I keep about as usual in health this winter—How do you get on with your new book?

Walt Whitman

Correspondent:
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).


Notes

  • 1. Rolleston's lecture (see the letter from Whitman to William D. O'Connor of August 29, 1883). [back]
  • 2. "A Backward Glance on My Own Road." [back]
Back to top