By your note of 18th,1 from New York, just received, I find that Mr. Edmund Routledge,2 editor, would, (I quote,) like to keep & use an original three-page poem sent him from me, but demurs to my first-asked price—that he directs you to offer me 10 pounds, which you can send me, $50: in gold—& that, (the terms being settled,) he will advertise it very largely.3
I accept the terms offered—$50: in gold—and you can yal.00371.002_large.jpg forw'd me the amount as soon as convenient. I repeat that I distinctly reserve the right of printing the piece in a future edition of my poems.4
Sending best wishes & respects to editor & publishers,5 I remain, Walt Whitman6 yal.00371.003_large.jpg yal.00371.004_large.jpgCorrespondent:
George Routledge & Sons were the publishers of
the London Broadway Annual (1867–1872). In 1867,
they printed two sympathetic accounts of Whitman. The novelist W.
Clark Russell termed Whitman one of America's eminent poets, and Robert Buchanan
devoted an entire article to Whitman; see Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, April 17, 1888 and
Tuesday, May 22, 1888. On
December 28, 1867, the New York office of the firm requested that Whitman
contribute "one or two papers or poems." Whitman sent "Whispers of Heavenly Death" in February 1868, and received
$50 in compensation, which he accepted in his February 19, 1868, letter to
Routledge & Sons. The poem, however,
did not appear in the Broadway Annual until October
1868.