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books sent July 1
143 King Henry's Road
South Hampstead
London. England.1
June 20. 1890.
Dear Sir
Will you kindly send me your large 6 dollar edition called "Complete Poems and
Prose";2 also "Leaves of Grass. Including Sands at Seventy and Backward glances.
Autograph & 6 portraits. Small edition bound in pocket book style.3 5 dollars. 1
copy of each. I enclose an order for £2 8".
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I have seen these editions at Mr H Buxton Forman's.4
Allow me to thank you warmly and gratefully for the great joy and profit your works
have brought me.
I am, dear sir
Yours very truly
Louisa Drewry
(address Miss Drewry.)
To Walt Whitman Esq
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P.S.) I shall be glad to have the books as soon as convenient to
you.5
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Correspondent:
Louisa Drewry (1834–1916) of
Middlesex, England, began teaching Greek and Latin classes for women in the
early 1860s. She became a founding faculty member of The Working Women's College
in 1864. She continued teaching classes for women in literature, composition,
and history until approximately 1910, and she had amassed a library of 2,000
books by the time of her death in 1916. She was a member of the Browning
Society, a contributor to the English Woman's Journal,
and is author of A Simple Method of Grammatical Analysis
(London: George Bell & Sons, 1891).
Notes
- 1. See Whitman's July 1, 1890, confirmation letter to Drewry. Harry
Buxton Forman mentions Louisa Drewry and her interest in Leaves of Grass in his June 16, 1890,
letter to Whitman. [back]
- 2. Whitman's Complete Poems & Prose (1888), a volume Whitman often referred to
as the "big book," was published by the poet himself—in an arrangement
with publisher David McKay, who allowed Whitman to use the plates for both Leaves of Grass and Specimen
Days—in December 1888. With the help of Horace Traubel, Whitman made
the presswork and binding decisions for the volume. Frederick Oldach bound the
book, which included a profile photo of the poet on the title page. For more
information on the book, see Ed Folsom, Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman: A Catalog and
Commentary (University of Iowa: Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, 2005). [back]
- 3. Whitman had a special
pocket-book edition printed in honor of his 70th birthday, May 31, 1889, through
special arrangement with Frederick Oldach. Only 300 copies were printed, and
Whitman signed the title page of each one. The volume also included the annex
Sands at Seventy and his essay A
Backward Glance O'er Traveled Roads. See Whitman's May 16, 1889, letter to Oldach. For more
information on the book see Ed Folsom, Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman: A Catalog and
Commentary (University of Iowa: Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, 2005). [back]
- 4. Henry "Harry" Buxton
Forman (1842–1917) was a British man-of-letters, an editor of and
authority on the works of Keats and Shelley, and, starting in 1887, a
conspirator in literary forgeries that were exposed after his death. The
correspondence at this time between Bucke and Forman makes it clear that Bucke
was also building up Forman's collection of Whitman materials (D. B. Weldon
Library, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario). [back]
- 5. The series of mathematical
calculations that have been written after the postscript are Whitman's. [back]