Details
WHITMAN, Walt. Autograph letter signed ("Walt") to John Burroughs, 431 Stevens Street, Camden, 26 November 1880. 1 page, 8vo, with original stamped envelope addressed by Whitman, fine. [With:] Carbon autpgraph letter signed (with about 30 words traced in ink by Whitman), of his protest against an unauthorized reprinting of Leaves of Grass, Camden, 26 November 1880. 2 pp., 4to.
WHITMAN PROTESTS A PIRACY OF HIS LEAVES OF GRASS
A fine letter in which Whitman solicits advice on a pressing copyright matter: "What could you do towards helping me in the matter stated by these two pages [the carbon]?...I have sent duplicates...to [Richard] Watson Gilder [editor of The Century]...I am ab't as usual, except the locomotion business is worse...rendering me indeed at times practically helpless...I thought [Edmund Clarence] Stedman's article full as good as could be expected..." Whitman's carbon copy letter explains that "A Worthington 770 Broadway New York...bo't at auction the electrotype plates (456 pages) of the 1860-'61 edition of my book Leaves of Grass--plates originally made by a young firm Thayer & Eldridge under my supervision there [in New York] and in Boston...A small edition was printed and issued at the time, but in six months or thereabouts Thayer & Eldridge failed, and these plates were stored away...They were put up in NY City by C. Leavitt...bought ...by said Worthington." Before selling them, Leavitt had offered Whitman the plates for sale, but he had responded that "said plates were worthless being superseded [sic] by a larger & different edition...[Worthington] wrote to me offering $250 if I would add something to the text & authenticate the plates...I wrote back...refusing the proposal & forbidding any use of the plates...I learn that Worthington has been slyly printing and selling the volume...from those plates..." Whitman continues that he wants Worthington stopped from issuing the books, wants his royaly on what has already been sold--"(though I have no idea of ever getting a cent)"--and he wants "W. taken hold of, if possible on a criminal proceeding. I am the sole owner of the copyright...I publish & sell the book myself--it is my sole means of living..." Published in Whitman, Correspondence, ed. E.H. Miller (NY, 1961-69), 986 (for carbon letter, see 985).
Provenance: The Estelle Doheny Collection (sale, Christie's New York, 21 & 22 February 1989, lot 2207).
WHITMAN PROTESTS A PIRACY OF HIS LEAVES OF GRASS
A fine letter in which Whitman solicits advice on a pressing copyright matter: "What could you do towards helping me in the matter stated by these two pages [the carbon]?...I have sent duplicates...to [Richard] Watson Gilder [editor of The Century]...I am ab't as usual, except the locomotion business is worse...rendering me indeed at times practically helpless...I thought [Edmund Clarence] Stedman's article full as good as could be expected..." Whitman's carbon copy letter explains that "A Worthington 770 Broadway New York...bo't at auction the electrotype plates (456 pages) of the 1860-'61 edition of my book Leaves of Grass--plates originally made by a young firm Thayer & Eldridge under my supervision there [in New York] and in Boston...A small edition was printed and issued at the time, but in six months or thereabouts Thayer & Eldridge failed, and these plates were stored away...They were put up in NY City by C. Leavitt...bought ...by said Worthington." Before selling them, Leavitt had offered Whitman the plates for sale, but he had responded that "said plates were worthless being superseded [sic] by a larger & different edition...[Worthington] wrote to me offering $250 if I would add something to the text & authenticate the plates...I wrote back...refusing the proposal & forbidding any use of the plates...I learn that Worthington has been slyly printing and selling the volume...from those plates..." Whitman continues that he wants Worthington stopped from issuing the books, wants his royaly on what has already been sold--"(though I have no idea of ever getting a cent)"--and he wants "W. taken hold of, if possible on a criminal proceeding. I am the sole owner of the copyright...I publish & sell the book myself--it is my sole means of living..." Published in Whitman, Correspondence, ed. E.H. Miller (NY, 1961-69), 986 (for carbon letter, see 985).
Provenance: The Estelle Doheny Collection (sale, Christie's New York, 21 & 22 February 1989, lot 2207).