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Camden
Thursday Evn'g Sept 29
1887
Nothing special—Am somewhat under the weather four or five days—cold in
the head or malaria—I sent Shiell's the book 16th Sept.1—McKay,2 my Phila: publisher,
has just been over—paid me $77 for royalties for the last eight months—I
paid the Camden taxes on my shanty to-day $263—The
photos come from Cox4 all right, & I sign & return them—Wm Carey,5 at
the Century office, seems to be managing the sale &
financial part of the matter—I am satisfied with all6—H Gilchrist7 the painter has gone back to England8 & taken his picture
with him—Morse9 the sculptor is still here (in
Phila)—I think the plaster head10 by him (the 2d head we call it) is the best
thing yet. Cloudy & rainy spell of weather here—I havn't been out of the
house since last Sunday—have been amusing myself with Pepys'
Diary11 (McKay sent it to me, good edn. 4 vols.)—When you come again,
don't forget to bring my Stedman12 book American Poets13—Love to Alma14 and Al15 and
all of you—
Walt Whitman
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Correspondent:
John H. Johnston (1837–1919) was a New York
jeweler and close friend of Whitman. Johnston was also a friend of Joaquin
Miller (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, August 14, 1888). Whitman visited the Johnstons for the
first time early in 1877. In 1888 he observed to Horace Traubel: "I count
[Johnston] as in our inner circle, among the chosen few" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Wednesday, October 3, 1888). See also Johnston's letter about
Whitman, printed in Charles N. Elliot, Walt Whitman as Man,
Poet and Friend (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1915), 149–174. For
more on Johnston, see Susan L. Roberson, "Johnston, John H. (1837–1919) and Alma Calder," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. Whitman sent a copy of
the 1876 edition of Leaves of Grass to Robert Shiells at
the "National Bank, Neenah, Wisconsin" (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E.
Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C.). [back]
- 2. David McKay (1860–1918) took
over Philadelphia-based publisher Rees Welsh's bookselling and publishing
businesses in 1881–82. McKay and Rees Welsh published the 1881 edition of
Leaves of Grass after opposition from the Boston
District Attorney prompted James R. Osgood & Company of Boston, the original publisher,
to withdraw. McKay also went on to publish Specimen Days &
Collect, November Boughs, Gems
from Walt Whitman, Complete Prose Works,
and the final Leaves of Grass, the so-called deathbed edition. For
more information about McKay, see Joel Myerson, "McKay, David (1860–1918)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 3. McKay paid Whitman
$76.91 on September 22; the exact amount of the city tax was $25.37
(Whitman's Commonplace Book). [back]
- 4. George Collins "G. C." Cox
(1851–1903) was a well-known celebrity photographer who had taken
photographs of Whitman when the poet was in New York to give his lecture on Abraham Lincoln (his Lincoln lecture)
in April 1887. "The Laughing
Philosopher," one of the most famous photographs of Whitman, was taken
by Cox in 1887. [back]
- 5. William Carey
(1858–1901) worked for the editorial department of The
Century Magazine. The September 1887 issue of the monthly advertised
signed photographs of Whitman (taken by George C. Cox earlier that summer). See
also Whitman's letter to Cox of September 15,
1887. [back]
- 6. George Cox (1851–1903)
proposed selling signed copies of his photographs of Whitman. However, when the
September 1887 issue of Century appeared with an
advertisement, Whitman still had not seen proofs, much less signed the
photographs. He wrote John H. Johnston on September 1,
1887, "He advertises . . . to sell my photo, with autograph. The
latter is forged, & the former illegal & unauthorized." The disagreement
was quickly resolved, and, as this letter indicates, Whitman signed photographs
for Cox and returned them. Cox had taken multiple photographs of Whitman in
April, 1887, including the image known as "The Laughing Philosopher." [back]
- 7. Herbert Harlakenden Gilchrist
(1857–1914), son of Alexander and Anne Gilchrist, was an English painter
and editor of Anne Gilchrist: Her Life and Writings
(London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1887). For more information, see Marion Walker Alcaro,
"Gilchrist, Herbert Harlakenden (1857–1914)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 8. [back]
- 9. Sidney H. Morse (1832–1903)
was a self-taught sculptor as well as a Unitarian minister and, from 1866 to
1872, editor of The Radical. He visited Whitman in Camden
many times and made various busts of him. Whitman had commented on an earlier
bust by Morse that it was "wretchedly bad." For more on this, see Ruth L. Bohan,
Looking into Walt Whitman: American Art,
1850–1920 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2006), 105–109. [back]
- 10. The "plaster head" is the
second of Sidney H. Morse's four plaster busts of Whitman. Morse's bust of the
poet is reproduced in Edwin Haviland Miller, The
Correspondence, Vol. 4, following 278 and in The
Artistic Legacy of Walt Whitman (1970), figure 24. [back]
- 11. Samuel Pepys
(1633–1703) was the author of the well-known diary of a decade of his life
(1660–1669), which remained unpublished until 1825; an expanded edition
was published in 1875–1879. [back]
- 12. Edmund Clarence Stedman
(1833–1908) was a man of diverse talents. He edited for a year the Mountain County Herald at Winsted, Connecticut, wrote
"Honest Abe of the West," presumably Lincoln's first campaign song, and served
as correspondent of the New York World from 1860 to 1862.
In 1862 and 1863 he was a private secretary in the Attorney General's office
until he entered the firm of Samuel Hallett and Company in September, 1863. The
next year he opened his own brokerage office. He published many volumes of poems
and was an indefatigable compiler of anthologies, among which were Poets of America, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1885) and A Library of American Literature from the Earliest
Settlement to the Present Time, 11 vols. (New York: C. L. Webster,
1889–90). For more, see Donald Yannella, "Stedman, Edmund Clarence (1833–1908)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 13. Whitman had left
Stedman's Poets of America at the Westminster Hotel (see
Whitman's April 16, 1887, letter to the
Proprietor, Westminster Hotel). [back]
- 14. Alma Calder Johnston was an author
and the second wife of John H. Johnston. Her family owned a home and property in
Equinunk, Pennsylvania. For more on the Johnstons, see Susan L. Roberson, "Johnston, John H. (1837–1919) and Alma Calder" (Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 15. Albert Johnston was the son
of John H. Johnston. [back]