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Mr Whitman1
Dear Sir
I wish the address of Mrs Alexander2 Gilchrist's3 children4—The Museum of Fine Arts Boston has written me for it—I have the
publisher's address of the last edition of Gilchrist's Blake5
loc.02256.002.jpg but I thought perhaps
you could give me the real address more direct than this other. The Museum of Fine
Arts is getting out another Blake exhibition—
I enclose a directed envelope—
With many apologies loc.02256.003.jpg for
troubling you
respectfully yours
E.E.P. Holland
Concord
Mass
Box 456—
February 14th 1891
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loc.02256.005.jpg
Please6 | Forward
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Correspondent:
Emma Elizabeth Pugh ("E.E.P.")
Holland (1842–1917) was an art collector in Concord, Massachusetts.
Through her paternal grandmother, Holland was a cousin of novelist Louisa May
Alcott, and was also a descendant of William Dawes Jr., an American
Revolutionary War patriot. After her death, major pieces of her collection were
acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Harvard University, and the
Worcester Art Museum. The Holland Family Papers, including Emma Holland's
scrapbooks and letters, are held in the Special Collections of the Concord Free
Public Library in Concord, Massachusetts.
Notes
- 1. The address and date of
composition appear at the end of the letter: Mr Walt Whitman | The Good Gray
Poet | Camden | New Jersey. It is postmarked: Concord | 1 PM | Feb | 1[illegible] | Mass.; Camden, N.J. | Feb |
16 | 6 AM | 1891 | Rec'd. [back]
- 2. Alexander Gilchrist
(1828–1861) was the biographer of William Blake and husband of Anne
Gilchrist (1828–1885). [back]
- 3. Anne Burrows Gilchrist
(1828–1885) was the author of one of the first significant pieces of
criticism on Leaves of Grass, titled "A Woman's Estimate
of Walt Whitman (From Late Letters by an English Lady to W. M. Rossetti)," The Radical 7 (May 1870), 345–59. Gilchrist's long
correspondence with Whitman indicates that she had fallen in love with the poet
after reading his work; when the pair met in 1876 when she moved to
Philadelphia, Whitman never fully returned her affection, although their
friendship deepened after that meeting. For more information on their
relationship, see Marion Walker Alcaro, "Gilchrist, Anne Burrows (1828–1885)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. Alexander and Anne Gilchrist
were the parents of four children: Beatrice Carwardine Gilchrist
(1854–1881), Grace "Giddy" Gilchrist (1859–1947), Herbert
Harlakenden Gilchrist (1857–1914), and Percy Carlyle Gilchrist
(1851–1935). [back]
- 5. Holland is referring to
Alexander Gilchrist's two-volume work Life of William Blake,
'Pictor Ignotus' With selections from his poems and other writings. The
first volume was a biography of William Blake (1757–1827) the English poet
and painter, and the second volume included Blake's prose, poetry, and artwork.
Gilchrist died in 1861 before finishing the book, but the work was completed by
his widow Anne Gilchrist with assistance from the writers Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(1828–1882) and William Michael Rossetti (1829–1919). The volumes
were first published in 1863, and another edition was published in 1880. [back]
- 6. Holland has written "Please
Forward" in the bottom left corner of the envelope. [back]