loc.02130.001_large.jpg
See notes Oct. 25 1888
Jamaica Plain.
Oct 24/88.
Dear Mr. Whitman:
I am over-joyed to receive your volume and autograph be sure it will be read and
heralded to the world. I saw Mr. Howells1 yesterday spent the
afternoon with him in discussing reforms, literary progress etcHe spoke of
you again with a good deal of feeling.
I think it of very great importance that you send him an autograph copy of "November
Boughs."2 If it has not been done loc.02130.002_large.jpg
loc.02130.003_large.jpg dont fail to do
it at once. If you send it immediately upon receipt of this letter address
W.D. Howells
Little Nahaut
(Near Lynn) Mass.
If you do not send till next week address
W.D. Howells
330 East 17th st.
New York City.
And I will write him again about it. He is more than friendly to you and all
progressive movements.
With deepest regard—
Hamlin Garland
loc.02130.004_large.jpg
Correspondent:
Hamlin Garland
(1860–1940) was an American novelist and autobiographer, known especially
for his works about the hardships of farm life in the American Midwest. For his
relationship to Whitman, see Thomas K. Dean, "Garland, Hamlin," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. William Dean Howells
(1837–1920) was an American realist novelist and literary critic, serving
the staff of the New York Nation and Harper's Magazine during the mid 1860s. During his tenure as
editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Monthly from 1871 to
1880, he was one of the foremost critics in New York, and used his influence to
support American authors like Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, and Emily
Dickinson. He also brought attention to European authors like Henrik Ibsen,
Giovanni Verga, and Leo Tolstoy in particular. Howells was highly skeptical of
Whitman's poetry, however, and frequently questioned his literary merit. In an
Ashtabula Sentinel review of the 1860 edition Leaves of Grass, Howells wrote, "If he is indeed 'the
distinctive poet of America,' then the office of poet is one which must be left
hereafter to the shameless and the friendless. for WALT WHITMAN is not a man
whom you would like to know." In 1865, Howells would write the first important
review of Drum-Taps in the Round
Table, demonstrating early signs of his conflicted opinion about
Whitman. For more information on Howells, see Susan Goodman and Carl Dawson, William Dean Howells: A Writer's Life (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2005). [back]
- 2. Whitman's November Boughs was published in October 1888 by Philadelphia
publisher David McKay. For more information on the book, see James E. Barcus
Jr., "November Boughs [1888]," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]