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Walt Whitman to Jacob Klein, 17 September 1888

Dear Sir

Yours just rec'd—wh' I think I cannot better than send an authentic Vol: of L of G. wh' I forward by the same mail as this—the price is $3—send by p o money order.2

Walt Whitman

Correspondent:
Jacob Klein (b. 1845) was a lawyer and, later, a Judge of the Circuit Court in St. Louis. Klein was born in Germany, but arrived in the United States with his parents in 1851; the family settled in St. Louis the following year. He was educated in St. Louis public schools and at Harvard Law School. He practiced law in St. Louis until he was elected Judge of the Circuit Court, and he also served as a member of the faculty at the St. Louis Law School (A. J. D. Stewart, "Jacob Klein, Saint Louis," The History of the Bench and Bar of Missouri [St. Louis, MO.: The Legal Publishing Company, 1898], 247–249).


Notes

  • 1. This letter is addressed: Jacob Klein | Attorney &c: | rooms 5, 6, &7— | 506 Olive Street | St. Louis | Missouri. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Sep 17 | 8 PM | 88. [back]
  • 2. It is clear from Klein's letter to William Sloane Kennedy on September 1, 1888, that he was troubled by Kennedy's letter to the editors, "Fraudulent 'Leaves of Grass,'" about the pirated 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, in The Critic on June 2. (Papers of Walt Whitman [MSS 3829], Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia). [back]
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