The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to James R. Osgood & Company, 8 December 1881
Date: December 8, 1881
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00112
Source: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book
and Manuscript Library. 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 derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented, updated, or created by Whitman Archive staff as appropriate.
Contributors to digital file: Stefan Schoeberlein, Nima Najafi Kianfar, Eder Jaramillo, and Nicole Gray
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431 Stevens Street
Camden New Jersey
Dec: 8 '81
Dear Sirs
I suppose you have got word that Trübner & Co: decline being the London publishers or agents of our Leaves of Grass, & that a friend there (in whom I have great confidence) has in the mean time (I suppose until you can be consulted) placed the agency in the hands of David Bogue, St. Martin's Place, Trafalgar Square. My friend seems to speak in a very recommendatory manner of D. B., & thinks the transfer will be no detriment to the sale of L of G in the long run—(& somehow I get the same impression)1—
Let me know soon as it is settled, as I have frequent occasion to give the London place of issue & deposit. I keep in good health for me—
Walt Whitman
Notes:
1. Benjamin Ticknor replied for James R. Osgood & Co. on December 10, and noted "a cable order for 250 copies more" from Bogue (The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman [New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1902], 8:287). [back]