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Walt Whitman to Joseph M. Stoddart, 24 April 1890

My dear Stoddart1

Can you use this in the magazine? It is intended to make one page full & square—& I shall require to see a proof beforehand—(that is indispensable.) The price is $60 & a dozen copies of the magazine number. I reserve the right of printing in future book.

Respectfully &c: Walt Whitman

If necessary I will contract or expand it (in proof) to make the fair page—


Correspondent:
Joseph Marshall Stoddart (1845–1921) published Stoddart's Encyclopaedia America, established Stoddart's Review in 1880, which was merged with The American in 1882, and became the editor of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1886. On January 11, 1882, Whitman received an invitation from Stoddart through J. E. Wainer, one of his associates, to dine with Oscar Wilde on January 14 (Clara Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs—Comrades [Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931], 235n).


Notes

  • 1. Joseph M. Stoddart (1845–1921) came to see Whitman on April 21, "inviting me to write for Lippincott's magazine" (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). Whitman sent "Old Age Echoes" "(4 pieces, 'sounds of winter,' 'the unexpress'd,' 'to the sunset-breeze' and 'after the argument')." On April 28 he agreed to Stoddart's request that the poems be printed separately (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.), and on the following day, April 29, the editor paid Whitman $60. "Old-Age Echoes" was published in March, 1891; "To the Sun-Set Breeze" was in the December, 1890 issue; apparently "After the Argument" was not printed. [back]
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