Thomas W. H. Rolleston to Walt Whitman, 10 March 1890
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Mar. 10 13 Emser Strasse
Wiesbaden
Germany.
My dear Walt
The enclosed will interest you—From all accounts the reception of book1 here is very satisfactory. I hope your garden finds you cheerful &—I can hardly hope well, for I have heard of late illness with great grief. We are here for my wifes health, which I am glad to say is much improved.
Ever yours T. W. Rolleston.
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Correspondent:
Thomas William Hazen Rolleston
(1857–1920) was an Irish poet and journalist. After attending college in
Dublin, he moved to Germany for a period of time. He wrote to Whitman
frequently, beginning in 1880, and later produced with Karl Knortz the first
book-length translation of Whitman's poetry into German. In 1889, the collection
Grashalme: Gedichte [Leaves of
Grass: Poems] was published by Verlags-Magazin in Zurich, Switzerland.
See Walter Grünzweig, Constructing the German Walt Whitman (Iowa
City: University of Iowa Press, 1995). For more information on Rolleston, see
Walter Grünzweig, "Rolleston, Thomas William Hazen (1857–1920)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. Grashalme, Rolleston and Karl Knortz's book-length German translation of Leaves of Grass had been published in 1889. Rolleston likely enclosed a review of the volume with this letter to Whitman, but the enclosure has not been located. [back]