After Henry M. Alden, the editor of Harper's Monthly Magazine, wrote Whitman in May 1885 that the series of poems of "Fancies at Navesink" would not "make a favorable impression upon our readers," Whitman sent this cluster of eight poems to the English journal Nineteenth Century. Edited by James Thomas Knowles, Jr., the Nineteenth Century was published in London from 1877-1900. The magazine, designed to be a review of science, politics, religion, and literature, was, from the first, liberal in outlook and known for controversial articles and essays. Contributors included a range of major British figures, such as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Huxley, Algernon Swinburne, an admirer of Whitman's early work, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Not only was the Nineteenth Century a commercial success, it was a major periodical of the era. Whitman's "Fancies at Navesink" thus appeared in a journal many considered to be a literary power in England and America.
Houghton, Walter. "The Nineteenth Century." In Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals (1824-1900). London: Routledge, 1999.
Myerson, Joel. Walt Whitman: A Descriptive Bibliography. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993.
Traubel, Horace. With Walt Whitman in Camden. Boston: Small, Maynard and Company, 1906.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass: Comprehensive Reader's Edition. Edited by Harold W. Blodgett and Sculley Bradley. New York: New York University Press, 1965.