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Charles B. Campbell to Walt Whitman, 23 June 1890

 yal.00318.013_large.jpg Mr. Walt Whitman Camden, N. J Dear Sir

Will you please let me know who is to publish your new book, or if it is sold by private subscription only.

I notice in the paper that you are writing a small annex to it.2 I should like to secure a copy of it.

Yours Very Truly Chas. B. Campbell.  yal.00318.012_large.jpg

Correspondent:
Little is known about Charles B. Campbell of Newark, New Jersey. He seems to have worked in or been the proprietor of an establishment offering fine stationery, artistic framing, and art pieces in several mediums.


Notes

  • 1. A line has been drawn through this letter in black ink. [back]
  • 2. The 1891–1892 Leaves of Grass was copyrighted in 1891 and published by Phildelphia publisher David McKay in 1892. This volume, often referred to as the "deathbed" edition, reprints, with minor revisions, the 1881 text from the plates of Boston publisher James R. Osgood. Whitman also includes his two annexes in the book. The first annex, called "Sands at Seventy," consisted of sixty-five poems that had originally appeared in November Boughs (1888); while the second, "Good-Bye my Fancy," was a collection of thirty-one short poems taken from the gathering of prose and poetry published under that title by McKay in 1891, along with a prose "Preface Note to 2d Annex." Whitman concluded the 1891–92 volume with his prose essay "A Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads," which had originally appeared in November Boughs. For more information on this volume of Leaves, see R.W. French, "Leaves of Grass, 1891–1892, Deathbed Edition," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
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