The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Henry Curtz, [10 May 1890]
Date: [May 10, 1890]
Whitman Archive ID: yal.00486
Source: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 5:46. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Andrew David King, Cristin Noonan, Breanna Himschoot, and Stephanie Blalock
give me a second proof please—leave it at dinner-time, if convenient, & I will read it & send it back immediately, so you can print me some slips this afternoon1—
W. W.
Correspondent:
Henry Curtz was a
printer/compositor at 104 S. Second St. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He
occasionally visited Whitman at his Camden home, and Whitman often used him to
set various pieces, to print stationery, envelopes, and shipping labels, and to
run proofs and send the poet printed slips. Whitman told Horace Traubel:
"Curtz—poor devil! I throw as much in his way as I can"(With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, November 25, 1890). Another time, he described Curtz this
way: "Henry Curtz. You know him, Horace. He is rather an effete
person—seems as if left over from a very remote past: his queer little
office, the Washington press, the old faced letters, the wood type, Curtz
himself: it's all odd and attractive to me. Be good to Curtz—he's the last
of his race" (With Walt Whitman in Camden, Saturday, May 19, 1888).
Notes:
1. This note was written on the verso of a heavily corrected proof of Whitman's poem "For Queen Victoria's Birthday." [back]