The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to James R. Osgood & Company, 17 July 1881
Date: July 17, 1881
Whitman Archive ID: whs.00001
Source: Wisconsin Historical Society. 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.
Notes for this letter were created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.
Contributors to digital file: Kirsten Clawson, Nima Najafi Kianfar, Stefan Schöberlein, and Nicole Gray
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431 Stevens Street1
Camden New
Jersey
July 17 '81
Dear Sirs
I have been unwell & disabled the last fifteen days from the heat & several little things happening. Am pretty well shattered anyhow—Am busy with the copy of the book—thought I had finished—but I find it will bear about as much work as I can put on it—& I can't hurry—But it is about in printing office shape—
How will it do to have this definite arrangement—that I come on by (or just before) 1st of September to Boston—& we make a clear start with it at once then?—Ought to be put through I suppose in two months—say by the end of October—
I was thinking something might be done with an extra bound edition for the holiday book trade for '81–2 for gift books—Couldn't we get it out early half of November if I am in Boston with the copy complete on or before 1st September sure?2
Walt Whitman
Notes:
1. A draft version of this letter is available at the Library of Congress. [back]
2. On July 18 the firm was ready to "start the book whenever you wish, and should consider six to eight weeks sufficient time for it." [back]