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New York.1
March 19th" 1860
Dear Walt,
I am sorry I could not see you previous to your departure for Boston.2—I
called in at Pfaffs,3 two evenings in succession but did not find you on
hand.—
I am quite anxious to hear about how matters are progressing with you.
Write to me as soon as you can make it convenient. Care of Man. Ex Co. 140 Chamber St,
New York.4
Every thing remains as usual in New York. I have seen the Atlantic5
for, April,6 "good, bully for you."—
Yours as Ever,
Fred.
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Fred Vaughan March '60
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Correspondent:
Fred Vaughan was a young
Irish stage driver with whom Whitman had an intense relationship during the late
1850's. For discussion of Vaughan's relationship with Whitman, see Jonathan Ned
Katz, Love Stories: Sex between Men before Homosexuality
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 123–132; Charley Shively,
Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working-Class
Camerados (San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1987), 36–50; Ed
Folsom and Kenneth M. Price, Re-Scripting Walt Whitman: An
Introduction to His Life and Work, "Chapter 4: Intimate Script and the New American Bible: "Calamus" and the
Making of the 1860 Leaves of Grass."
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman | Care of Thayer & Eldridge | Boston Mass. It is postmarked:
New-York |
Mar | 19 | 1860. The envelope includes the printed address of the Manhattan
Express Company's General Office (168 Broadway, N. Y.). Vaughan worked for the
company in 1860. Whitman wrote and then crossed out Vaughan's return address on
the front of the envelope. [back]
- 2. On February 10, 1860, Whitman received a letter from the Boston
publishing firm of Thayer and Eldridge, offering to publish his poetry. The firm
would publish Whitman's third edition of Leaves of Grass
later that year. In March 1860, Whitman traveled to Boston to meet with the
publishers and to oversee the printing of the edition. For more on Whitman's
relationship with Thayer and Eldridge, see "Thayer, William Wilde (1829–1896) and Charles W. Eldridge
(1837–1903)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. Pfaff's was a basement beer
cellar located at 647 Broadway, where a group of American Bohemians—that
included Whitman—gathered in the antebellum years. Charles Ignatius Pfaff
(ca. 1819–1890) was the proprietor of this establishment, as well as other
restaurants and, later, a hotel that were all referred to as "Pfaff's." For a
history of Pfaff's, see Stephanie M. Blalock's open access, online edition, "GO
TO PFAFF'S!": The History of a Restaurant and Lager Beer Saloon (Bethlehem, PA:
Lehigh University Press, 2014), which is published online at The Vault at Pfaff's: An Archive of Art and Literature by the Bohemians of
Antebellum New York, Edward Whitley and Rob Weidman, ed. (Lehigh
University). For more on Whitman and the American bohemians, see Joanna Levin
and Edward Whitley, ed., Whitman Among the Bohemians
(Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2014). [back]
- 4. The Manhattan Express
Company, formed in 1858 as the result of a consolidation and reorganization of
businesses began by Robert F. Westcott and A. S. Dodd. The main office of the
company was located at 168 Broadway, and there were several branch offices,
including one on Chambers St. The company's employees collected and delivered
packages in addition to transporting baggage for railroad passengers. For more
information, see A. L. Stimson, History of the Express
Business; including the origin of the railway system in America (New
York: Barker & Godwin, Printers, 1881). [back]
- 5. Founded in 1857 in Boston, the Atlantic Monthly, was during Vaughan and Whitman's lifetimes a
prestigious literary magazine. For more on Whitman's relationship with the
magazine, see Susan Belasco's "The Atlantic Monthly." [back]
- 6. Whitman published the poem
"Bardic Symbols" in the Atlantic Monthly 5
(April 1860): 445–447. The poem was revised as "Leaves of Grass. 1" in Leaves of Grass (1860) and reprinted as "Elemental
Drifts," Leaves of Grass (1867). The final version, "As I
Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life," was published in Leaves of
Grass (1881–82). [back]