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Edwin Booth to Walt Whitman, 24 August 1884

About This Item

  • Title: Edwin Booth to Walt Whitman, 24 August 1884
  • Date: August 24, 1884
  • Creator(s): Edwin Booth | Horace Traubel
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.05826
  • Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The transcription presented here is derived from Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953), 355. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman Stefan Schöberlein Nicole Gray Ed Folsom
  • Cite this page: Booth, Edwin and Horace Traubel. "Edwin Booth to Walt Whitman, 24 August 1884." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 08 December 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.05826.xml (TEI)
Newport, Aug. 24th, '84. Dear Sir—

I shall go to Boston Tuesday and will endeavor to get a portrait of my father—I have none here.1

Many thanks for your kind offer of a copy of your book which I gladly accept.

Truly yours Edwin Booth.

Correspondent:
Edwin Thomas Booth (1833–1893) was an American actor, famous for performing Shakespeare in the U.S. and Europe, the son of actor Junius Brutus Booth (1796–1852), and the brother of Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth (1838–1865), also an actor. He was the owner of Booth's Theatre in New York.

Notes

  • 1. See Whitman's letter to Booth from August 21, 1884, asking for "a good characteristic portrait of your father either in citizen's costume, or, (if very good) in one of his dramatic characters." [back]
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