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328 Mickle Street
Camden New Jersey
Dec: 4 '89
Dear Sir
Can you use this poemet1 in your cluster?—It would
probably do to go out just as well during the week immediately preceding
Christmas—The price is $11 (ten for the little piece & one for printing
the slips)—your notes rec'd:2 thank'd for, & I may send you
something—
Respectfully
Walt Whitman
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Correspondent:
Samuel Sidney McClure
(1857–1949) was the co-founder and editor of McClure's
Magazine. Well-known for its investigative journalism, the illustrated
monthly initially rejected Whitman's submissions and only posthumously published
some of his poetry (in 1897).
Notes
- 1. Whitman is referring to the
poem ultimately titled "A
Christmas Greeting." In his December 3,
1889, letter to Richard Maurice Bucke the poet refers to the poem as
"the little 'Northern Star-Group to a Southern' (welcome to Brazilian
Republic)." This would become the poem's subtitle: "From a Northern Star-Group
to a Southern. 1889–'90." See also "[A
North Star]," a manuscript draft of this poem, in the Catalog of the
Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the
Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington,
D.C. [back]
- 2. McClure had written to
Whitman on December 3, 1889. [back]