The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: [Houghton,] Mifflin & Co., Publishers to Walt Whitman, [11] January 1888
Date: January [11], 1888
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00576
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.
Related item: On the back of this letter, Whitman has drafted a poem titled "The Dead Emperor."
Contributors to digital file: Blake Bronson-Bartlett, Breanna Himschoot, Ian Faith, and Stephanie Blalock
 image 1 |  image 2 |
[illegible] MIFFLIN & CO., Publishers.
New York Office.
11 E. 17th St.
Boston,
19 Jany
1888
[illegible]ing a little book [illegible] [illegible]nd book for schools [illegible] Lincoln and celebrating [illegible] [illegible]ill contain the [illegible] [illegible] Russell Lowell1 [illegible] election from [illegible], state papers and lett [illegible] to inclu [illegible] My Cap [illegible] [illegible] permit
Correspondent:
Houghton, Mifflin and Co.,
Publishers were a publishing firm with offices in Boston and at 11 E. 17th St.
in New York. They published, among other works, numerous titles that were
adopted as textbooks in many schools. This letter appears to be a request from
the publisher to Whitman in order to obtain permission for publishing the poet's
poem "O Captain! My Captain!" in one or more books, including one for use in
schools.
Notes:
1. James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) was an American critic, poet and editor of The Atlantic. One of Whitman's famous poetic contemporaries, Lowell was committed to conventional poetic form, which was clearly at odds with Whitman's more experimental form. Still, as editor of the Atlantic Monthly, he published Whitman's "Bardic Symbols," probably at Ralph Waldo Emerson's suggestion. Lowell later wrote a tribute to Abraham Lincoln titled "Commemoration Ode," which has often, since its publication, been contrasted with Whitman's own tribute, "O Captain! My Captain!" For further information on Whitman's views of Lowell, see William A. Pannapacker, "Lowell, James Russell (1819–1891)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998) [back]