Walt Whitman Quarterly Review

Krieg, Joann P

Armstrong, Jennifer. The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan and Mary Mehan Awake [review]

Front Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 18, no. 4

Robertson, Michael

Garman, Brian K. A Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen [review]

Walt Whitman: A Current Bibliography, Winter 2001

Folsom, Ed

Front Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 19, no. 2

Offers a reading of "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life" based on Julia Kristeva's theories of "the maternal role in language acquisition and subject formation" and childhood encounters with the "abject.

Jensen, Beth

English

Ambiguous Struggle: Abjecting the M/other in "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life"

Front Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 18, no. 3

Front Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 18, no. 1/2

Prints two previously unpublished Whitman letters to Linton, filling in details of the early relationship between Whitman and the engraver/writer/anthologist

Genoways, Ted

TWO UNPUBLISHED LETTERS: 
WALT WHITMAN TO WILLIAM JAMES LINTON, 
MARCH 14 AND APRIL 11,1872 
TED GENOWAYS 
THE TWO FOLLOWING unpublished letters by Walt Whitman to William 
James Linton, the preeminent British wood-engraver and a poet of 
modest reputation, were recently discovered among items available for 
purchase at two separate manuscript dealers.l Though Whitman did 
. not include the year in the dateline of either letter, all internal and exter-
nal evidence confirms that both letters were written during Whitman's 
brief visit to Brooklyn in the spring of 1872, at which time he arranged 
to have Linton prepare an engraving he intended to use as the frontis-
piece of the 1876 edition of Leaves of Grass. 
TO WILLIAM J. LINTON 3.14.[1872] 
Brooklyn, New York / March 14 
My dear Mr. Linton, 
I think of wanting this engraved (exactly this size, and general design) for a 
frontispiece for my next edition of "Leaves of Grass." Do you think it would make a 
good picture?-Would it suit you to do it for me? If yes what would be the price? I shall 
be here for some two weeks yet-then to return to Washington-
-Send me word by mail, & if convenient appoint an hour, day, & place in 
New York, where we could meet & talk it over-Bring this picture with you. I will be 
there as you appoint. 
Walt Whitman 
TO WILLIAM J. LINTON 4.11.[1872] 
Brooklyn, Thursday forenoon / April 11 
My dear Linton, 
I have just been spending an hour looking over "The Future" -and the "Ire-
land" you sent me--& stopping at certain pieces here & there, & reading them quite 
carefully, & dwelling upon them. They touch me deeply-indeed more than anything 
of the kind had previously done--the undertone of anguish and despair-the Laocoon 
struggles, (apparently useless) under the tightening grip [P] ing folds of the serpent-the 
cries & complaints & remonstrances & calls for help--somehow, in your verses, brought 
the fearful condition of the laboring millions not only of Ireland, Italy, Poland &c-but 
all Europe--more vividly than ever yet, before me. 
And it is well for me to get such reminding's-
189 
But my own vein is full of hope, promise, faith, certainty-I see how an Ameri-
can-I for instance-cannot perhaps realize the peoples desperate condition over the 
major part of the world-
-This point you have to-day brought up sharply before me. 
Walt Whitman 
I return to Washington Saturday. 
The first of these two new letters is dated March 14 (see facsimile 
on back cover). In the credit line for the engraving in the 1876 Leaves of 
Grass (see Figure 1), Whitman identified the portrait as "Photograph'd 
from life, Washington, 1871, by G.C. Potter, and drawn on wood by 
W.J. Linton."2 The March 14 letter opens by referring to an enclosed 
photograph, now lost: "I think of wanting this for a frontispiece for my 
next edition of 'Leaves of Grass.' Do you think it would make a good 
picture?"3 The enclosure of this photograph and the nature of the re-
mainder of the letter indicate that this is the first communication con-
cerning the engraving. Considering that the Potter photograph was 
taken in 1871 and that Whitman wrote to Linton on March 22, 1872, 
the letter would have to have been composed in 1871 or 1872. Because 
the letter was written from Brooklyn-and Whitman was in Washing-
ton in the spring of 1871-the letter can only have been composed in 
1872. 
Figure 1. W. J. Linton's engraving of 
Whitman, 1876. 
190 
There is no record of why 
Whitman chose Linton specifi-
cally for the engraving; however, 
it seems likely that the suggestion 
came from Anne Gilchrist. 
Linton had supplied the dazzling 
wood-engravings to her husband 
Alexander Gilchrist's Life of Will-
iam Blake, published in England 
in 1863, and had remained close 
friends with the Gilchrists, even 
after his departure from England 
to New Haven, Connecticut, in 
1866. 4 On February 8, 1872, 
Whitman wrote Anne Gilchrist: 
"I am going on to New York soon 
to remain there a few weeks."5 On 
March 15, now in New York, 
Whitman noted in a letter to John 
Burroughs: "Rec'd a letter from 
Mrs. Gilchrist in England" (Corr. 
2:168). Unfortunately her origi-
nal is lost; however, given that her 
letter arrived on or around March 14, it seems likely that Anne Gilchrist 
suggested that Whitman call on Linton. On that very date he wrote to 
Linton, not only to inquire about the engraving, but also suggested that 
Linton "appoint an hour, day, & place in New York, where we could 
meet & talk it over." 
Linton's response is also missing, but apparently he asked for a 
large sum of money to do the engraving, because on March 22, 1872, 
Whitman replied: 
I have been delaying to write you about the portrait in answer-wanting you to do it-
& wanting, if I could arrange it, to give you the full price-I will not have the job done 
by any second-rater, & have concluded to give it up for the present-unless it could be 
done by you for $50. 6 
Linton agreed to the price. Years later Whitman told Horace Traubel 
that in reply Linton "wrote me that if he had been rich he would have 
made it for nothing but as he was not he would charge me fifty dollars 
for it."7 Perhaps it was in that same letter that Linton took advantage of 
this favor by sending Whitman two of his own poems for evaluation. 
The second unpublished letter presented here is Whitman's re-
sponse. Though dated "April 11" with no year, this letter also can be 
definitively placed in 1872. Most obviously, the letter's postscript states 
"I return to Washington Saturday." This is consistent with Whitman's 
statements in the March 14 letter ("I shall be here for some two weeks 
yet-then to return to Washington-") and March 22 letter ("I return 
to Washington in ten or twelve days").8 Furthermore, "April II" is 
emended "Thursday forenoon." April 11 would have fallen on a Thurs-
day in 1867, 1872, 1877, and so on. Since Whitman did not make 
Linton's acquaintance until 1872, any earlier date can be discounted. 
Any date later than 1875 can likewise be discounted, because Whitman 
suffered a stroke in 1873 and moved to Camden, New Jersey, on 
May 20 of that year. His last visit to Washington came in November 
1875. Therefore, the date "Thursday forenoon, / April 11" can only 
apply to that same spring in 1872. 
Linton was by no means a significant poet, but his skills as an en-
graver and editor allowed him intimate contact with an array of notable 
British or American writers of the nineteenth-century-Carlyle, 
Thackeray, Bryant, Lowell, Tennyson, Whittier, Emerson, and 
Longfellow, to name a few. Whitman's kind response was no doubt 
born of a mixture of indebtedness and guile; however, in so doing he 
also gently registers his aversion to Linton's "undertone of anguish and 
despair," saying "my own vein is full of hope, promise, faith, certainty." 
This chiding may have colored Linton's own late opinion of Whitman's 
poetry: he wrote in his . Three Score and Ten Years, published in 1894, 
that Whitman was "a true poet who could not write poetry, much of 
191 
wilfulness accounting for his neglect of form, perhaps as fatal a mistake 
in a poet as in a painter" (21 7). 
Whether due to Linton's wounded ego or simply the difficulty of 
travelling to New York, the two men did not meet before Whitman's 
departure. If Whitman attempted to contact Linton during his subse-
quent visit to New York and New England in June and July 1872, no 
record has been recovered. By October 4, 1872, Whitman was con-
cerned enough about Linton's silence to write him, "How do you get on 
with the picture? .. I have not heard from you for some months" (Corr., 
2: 186). In late 1872 or early 1873, the two did eventually meet, Linton 
recalling, "Walt Whitman I first saw at his desk in the Treasury at Wash-
ington" (Three Score, 216-217). They met again, after Whitman's stroke, 
in Camden in early November of 1873. Whitman wrote Peter Doyle 
that "Mr. Linton, the artist, has lately called upon me" (Corr., 2:256). 
Linton confirmed that "I called on him at his home (his brother's house) 
in Camden, over the river from Philadelphia" (Three Score, 217). 
When the engraving appeared in Leaves of Grass in 1876, it was 
positioned not as a frontispiece but opposite "The Wound-Dresser."g 
This repositioning does not appear to have been a cooling of Whitman's 
pride in the engraving; in fact, the poem "Out from Behind this Mask" 
was directly inspired by the rendering and originally carried the subtitle, 
"To confront My Portrait, illustrating 'the Wound-Dresser,' in LEAVES 
OF GRASS." 10 With Whitman's permission, Linton subsequently used 
the portrait as the frontispiece to his Poetry of America (London, 1878). 
Though their contact grew more sporadic, the two men continued 
to correspond nearly until Whitman's death. Linton remembered, "I 
had some friendly correspondence and interchange of writing with him. 
I liked the man much, a fine-natured, good-hearted, big fellow" (Three 
Score, 217). Many of those later letters are well-documented in Horace 
Traubel's With Walt Whitman in Camden and Edwin Haviland Miller's 
edition of The Correspondence. These two newly discovered letters add 
to and help complete the correspondence by revealing important details 
of the early correspondence between Whitman and Linton. 
Minnesota Historical Society Press 
NOTES 
The March 14 letter was located at Heritage Book Shop, Inc., in Los Angeles, and 
is published by permission of Susanne Bordner; the April 11 letter was located at 
Bromer Booksellers, Inc., in Boston, and is published by permission of David J. Bromer. 
Additional thanks are due to Anne Dane at Bromer Booksellers, Inc., for her assis-
tance in providing photocopies of the April 11 letter. The letters are now in the Kendall 
Reed Collection. 
2 Leaves of Grass, 1876,vi. 
192 
3 One of the original prints of this portrait now resides in the Bayley Collection at 
Ohio Wesleyan University. For the photograph and Linton's engraving, see Ed Folsom, 
"The Photographs of Walt Whitman" Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 4 (FalllWinter 
1986-1987), 7-42. 
4 For Linton's account err preparing the Blake engravings, see his Three Score and 
Ten Years, 181-182. For evidence of Anne Gilchrist's personal acquaintance with 
Linton, see her letter to him, inviting him to the Gilchrist home and praising the 
Whitman portrait, dated December 11, 1877, held in the John Hay Library at Brown 
University. Subsequent citations to Linton's book will appear parenthetically as Three 
Score. 
5 Walt Whitman, Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York 
University Press, 1961), 2: 164. Abbreviated parenthetically as Corr. 
6 Corr., 2:171-172. 
7 Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden (New York: 1915),2:429. 
8 Corr . ., 2: 172. 
9 Leaves of Grass, 1876, facing p. 285. 
10 Two Rivulets., 24. For an excellent discussion of the interplay between the engrav-
ing and the poem, see Harold W. Blodgett's "Whitman and the Linton Portrait," Walt 
Whitman Newsletter 4 (September 1958), 90-92. 
193 


Two Unpublished Letters: Walt Whitman to William James Linton, March 14 and April 11, 1872

Back Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 18, no. 1/2

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