Details
WHITMAN, Walt. Three autograph postcards signed ("Walt Whitman") to John Burroughs, Camden, New Jersey, [17 March 1881], 27 August 1882 and February 1889. Together 4 pages, oblong, two with address panels in Whitman's hand, that of [17 March 1881] with two minor stains, otherwise fine.
"CARLYLE'S 'CUSSEDNESS'" AND "THE FEVER CALLED LITERATURE." A trio of messages to a his closest literary acquaintance. [17 March 1881] "I go down three or four days at a time to my friends at Staffords & get out in the woods a great deal...your letter don't contain the slip about the Emerson business you allude to--the just published Carlyle Reminiscences, so well and strong praised in the [New York] Herald...and everywhere, don't confirm or add to my estimation of C--much the contrary--Kennedy comes here quite often...I guess he is a pretty good man, but has the fever called literature and I shouldn't wonder if he was in for it for life..." 27 August 1882: "...The type-setting of 'Specimen Days' will be all finished the coming week & the book out ten days afterward--same sized vol: same sort of type, binding, general appearance etc. with L of G--same price...Does not what you saw of English society explain a good deal of Carlyle's cussedness?" Published in Correspondence, ed. Miller, 1018, 1152 and 1948.
Provenance: The Estelle Doheny Colection (sale, Christie's New York, 21 & 22 February 1989, lot 2212). (3)
"CARLYLE'S 'CUSSEDNESS'" AND "THE FEVER CALLED LITERATURE." A trio of messages to a his closest literary acquaintance. [17 March 1881] "I go down three or four days at a time to my friends at Staffords & get out in the woods a great deal...your letter don't contain the slip about the Emerson business you allude to--the just published Carlyle Reminiscences, so well and strong praised in the [New York] Herald...and everywhere, don't confirm or add to my estimation of C--much the contrary--Kennedy comes here quite often...I guess he is a pretty good man, but has the fever called literature and I shouldn't wonder if he was in for it for life..." 27 August 1882: "...The type-setting of 'Specimen Days' will be all finished the coming week & the book out ten days afterward--same sized vol: same sort of type, binding, general appearance etc. with L of G--same price...Does not what you saw of English society explain a good deal of Carlyle's cussedness?" Published in Correspondence, ed. Miller, 1018, 1152 and 1948.
Provenance: The Estelle Doheny Colection (sale, Christie's New York, 21 & 22 February 1989, lot 2212). (3)