loc.01311.001_large.jpg
Feb: 15 '881
To Executive Committee Contemporary Club:
I propose the name of Thomas B Harned,2 Counsellor at Law,
of this city, for membership in the club.
Walt Whitman
Camden
NJ
Feb 15 '88
loc.01311.002_large.jpg
Correspondent:
The Contemporary Club was a
Philadelphia literary circle established in 1886 by the essayist Agnes Repplier.
In 1887, Whitman gave a reading of "The Mystic Trumpeter" and "A Voice from the
Sea" at the club.
Notes
- 1. This letter is composed
of a thinner material than Whitman normally writes on during this period. Thus,
the ink on the recto seeps through to the verso side. [back]
- 2. Thomas Biggs Harned
(1851–1921) was one of Whitman's literary executors. Harned was a lawyer
in Philadelphia and, having married Augusta Anna Traubel (1856–1914), was
Horace Traubel's brother-in-law. For more on him, see Dena Mattausch, "Harned, Thomas Biggs (1851–1921)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). For more on his relationship with Whitman, see
Thomas Biggs Harned, Memoirs of Thomas B. Harned, Walt
Whitman's Friend and Literary Executor, ed. Peter Van Egmond (Hartford:
Transcendental Books, 1972). [back]