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THE PICTORIAL WORLD,
Illustrated Newspaper,
OFFICES: 63, FLEET STREET, LONDON,1
May 31st 1875.
Walt Whitman Esq.
Dear Sir,
As one of your admirers, and as the cousin of Mr. Robert Buchanan,2
another of your admirers, I want you to do me a favor—that is, to write me
a lyric—something in the style of that on Abraham Lincoln—for a new
monthly magazine I am
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out. Will you do this?
As a further clue to my identity, I may tell you that I am editor of this paper and
English correspondent of Appleton's Journal.
Very faithfully yours,
Will Williams.
P.S. The magazine in question will contain contributions by well-known
English and American authors.3
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from Will Williams
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Correspondent:
Little is known about Will Williams, who was the literary editor of
the Pictorial World and an English correspondent for Appleton's Journal.
In 1875, he began conducting a monthly magazine titled, The London Magazine, which had a four-year run.
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman Esq. | Care of—Gardner Esq. | Photographer, | Washington, |
U.S.A. It is postmarked: London | 6 | MY31 |
75. [back]
- 2. Robert Buchanan (1841–1901), Scottish poet and
critic, had lauded Whitman in the Broadway Annual in
1867, and in 1872 praised Whitman but attributed his poor reception in England
to the sponsorship of William Michael Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne.
See Harold Blodgett, Walt Whitman in England (1934),
79–80, and Gay Wilson Allen, The Solitary Singer
(1955), 445–446. Swinburne's recantation later in 1872 may be partly
attributable to Buchanan's injudicious remarks. For more on Buchanan, see Philip
W. Leon, "Buchanan, Robert (1841–1901)," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. The back of the envelope that accompanied this letter
has been used to record a series of calculations. [back]