The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to an Unidentified Correspondent, 20 June 1887
Date: June 20, 1887
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00281
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.
Contributors to digital file: Ryan Furlong, Stefan Schöberlein, Kevin McMullen, and Stephanie Blalock
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328 Mickle Street
Camden New Jersey
June 20 '87
Thank you my friend for the delicious chocolate—I have it for my breakfast frequently, & enjoy it—Please accept a copy of my little book "Specimen Days" London ed'n. which I send for the young folks.
Walt Whitman
It is just possible I have sent you a note of acknowledgment before—but I think not as I have been ill. (I suppose Pearsall Smith1 was the cause of your sending it to me.)
Correspondent:
As yet we have no information about
this correspondent.
Notes:
1. Robert Pearsall Smith (1827–1898) was a Quaker who became an evangelical minister associated with the "Holiness movement." He was also a writer and businessman. Whitman often stayed at his Philadelphia home, where the poet became friendly with the Smith children—Mary, Logan, and Alys. For more information about Smith, see Christina Davey, "Smith, Robert Pearsall (1827–1898)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]