Walt Whitman to the Editor of the Century Illustrated Monthly Review, 10 August [1886]

About This Item

Title: Walt Whitman to the Editor of the Century Illustrated Monthly Review, 10 August [1886]
Date: August 10, [1886]
Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00493
Source: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 40–41. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schöberlein Kyle Barton Marie Ernster Stephanie Blalock
Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to the Editor of the Century Illustrated Monthly Review, 10 August [1886]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 08 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: uva.00493.xml (TEI)

328 Mickle Street1 Camden New Jersey2 Aug: 10

I sent the revised & added Copy of the Hospitals article3—also the signed receipt. Send me a line acknowledging them, as I have a little uncertainty ab't my P O messenger.

Walt Whitman

Correspondent:
Richard Watson Gilder (1844–1909) was the assistant editor of Scribner's Monthly from 1870 to 1881 and editor of its successor, The Century, from 1881 until his death. Whitman had met Gilder for the first time in 1877 at John H. Johnston's (Gay Wilson Allen, The Solitary Singer [New York: New York University Press, 1955], 482). Whitman attended a reception and tea given by Gilder after William Cullen Bryant's funeral on June 14; see "A Poet's Recreation" in the New York Tribune, July 4, 1878. Whitman considered Gilder one of the "always sane men in the general madness" of "that New York art delirium" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Sunday, August 5, 1888). For more about Gilder, see Susan L. Roberson, "Gilder, Richard Watson (1844–1909)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Notes

1. This letter is addressed: Editor | Century Magazine | Union Square | New York City | attention of | C C Buel. It is postmarked: Camden | Aug | (?) | 3(?) PM | N.J.; P. O. | 8-10-86 | (?) | N.Y. [back]
2. This letter is addressed to the attention of C. C. Buel. Clarence Clough Buel (1850–1933) was assistant editor of the Century Magazine and a writer of prose and poetry, some of it published in the Century. With the writer Robert Underwood Johnson (1853–1937), he edited the Century articles looking back on the Civil War. He was a good friend of Richard Watson Gilder, who edited the Century; Buel wrote The Surprise Party on Mount Pinard (New York: 1884), a poem about The Author's Club, a group of New York literary notables that met regularly at Gilder's home. [back]
3. According to his Commonplace Book, Whitman sent the copy of his article "Army and Hospital Cases" and a receipt on August 8, 1886 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). It was published in The Century in October 1888. [back]