Camden New Jersey U S America1
Feb. 3 '87
I yesterday sent you as copy, a volume of Spec. Days,2 & a letter3—please notify me if they both come safely—I don't think of any
thing I want to add to the suggestions in the letter—If any thing further
occurs to me, I will write to you—It strikes me that from a business &
publisher's point of view your folks w'd do well to have the three
volumes viz: L of G as you already have it & then the two prose books
"Spec: Days" & "Democratic Vistas"4—
W W
Correspondent:
Ernest Percival Rhys
(1859–1946) was a British author and editor; he founded the Everyman's
Library series of inexpensive reprintings of popular works. He included a volume
of Whitman's poems in the Canterbury Poets series and two volumes of Whitman's
prose in the Camelot series for Walter Scott publishers. For more information
about Rhys, see Joel Myerson, "Rhys, Ernest Percival (1859–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Ernest Rhys | 59 Cheyne Walk | Chelsea | London England. It is postmarked: (?) |
Feb | 3 | (?); Philadelphia, Pa. | Feb | 3 | 4 PM | 1887 | Transit. [back]
- 2. The first issue of Whitman's Specimen Days and Collect was published by the
Philadelphia firm of Rees Welsh and Company in 1882. The second issue was
published by David McKay. Many of the autobiographical notes, sketches, and
essays that focus on the poet's life during and beyond the Civil War had been
previously published in periodicals or in Memoranda During the
War (1875–1876). For more information on Specimen Days, see George Hutchinson and David Drews "Specimen Days [1882]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. See Whitman's letter to Rhys
of February 2, 1887. [back]
- 4. Whitman's Democratic Vistas was first published in 1871 in New York by J.S. Redfield.
The volume was an eighty-four-page pamphlet based on three essays, "Democracy," "Personalism," and "Orbic Literature," all of which
Whitman intended to publish in the Galaxy magazine. Only "Democracy" and "Personalism" appeared in the magazine. For
more information on Democratic Vistas, see Arthur Wrobel, "Democratic Vistas [1871]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]