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Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 13 February [1877]

About This Item

  • Title: Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 13 February [1877]
  • Date: February 13, 1877
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: uva.00382
  • Source: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

    Notes for this letter were created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.
  • Contributors to digital file: Alicia Bones Anthony Dreesen Eder Jaramillo Kevin McMullen Nicole Gray Kenneth Price
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to John Burroughs, 13 February [1877]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 15 December 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: uva.00382.xml (TEI)
 uva_jc.00456_large.jpg 431 Stevens st​ Camden Feb​ 13—p m Dear John Burroughs

Yours of 6th only rec'd​ this afternoon by me—as I have just return'd​ to day from a week down at a farm in Jersey—

—I hope you will adopt Birds & Poets—& then the Flight of the Eagle1—As the more I think of them, the better I like both—(I mean directly & indirectly, & for wear)—Come on to Mrs. Gilchrist's 16th or 17th2—I will prepare them—I will be there—it is 1929 north 22d street—I still keep pretty well for me

WW  uva_jc.00457_large.jpg  uva_jc.00454_large.jpg  uva_jc.00455_large.jpg

Notes

  • 1. "The Flight of the Eagle" is the chapter devoted to Walt Whitman in Birds and Poets. See Whitman's letter to John Burroughs, 24 January 1877. [back]
  • 2. Burroughs arrived in Philadelphia on February 15; see Whitman's letter to Anne Gilchrist, 14 February 1877. In his journal on February 17, Burroughs recorded his visit with Walt Whitman: "It is a feast to look at Walt's face; it is incomparably the grandest face I ever saw—such sweetness and harmony, and such strength . . . If that is not the face of a poet, then it is the face of a god. None of his pictures do it half justice" (Clara Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs—Comrades (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 160). [back]
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