William Michael Rossetti to Walt Whitman, 11 January 1886
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5 ENDSLEIGH GARDENS.
N.W.
11 Jany/86.
Dear Whitman,
This note is written beforehand, in expectation of my paying-in tomorrow at a Post-Office the ￡33.16.6. wh. I named to you in my recent letter.1 The postal order, on my obtaining it,
will be enclosed herein, & dispatched 
loc.03612.002_large.jpg to you. Since the date of my last
something further has come in: it will be accounted for at a future opportunity.
On 13 Jany I expect to leave London, & stay some four weeks with my family at the Clarendon Hotel, Ventnor, I. of Wight.
Yours with affectionate regard, W. M. Rossetti
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recd Jan: 25 '86 ￡33.16.6
Correspondent:
William Michael Rossetti (1829–1915), brother
of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, was an English editor and a champion of
Whitman's work. In 1868, Rossetti edited Whitman's Poems,
selected from the 1867 Leaves of Grass. Whitman referred
to Rossetti's edition as a "horrible dismemberment of my book" in his August 12, 1871, letter to Frederick S. Ellis. Nonetheless,
the edition provided a major boost to Whitman's reputation, and Rossetti would
remain a staunch supporter for the rest of Whitman's life, drawing in
subscribers to the 1876 Leaves of Grass and fundraising
for Whitman in England. For more on Whitman's relationship with Rossetti, see
Sherwood Smith, "Rossetti, William Michael (1829–1915)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).