Lippincott's Magazine

One of several magazines that published work from Whitman in the last years of his life, the March 1891 issue of Lippincott's Magazine featured Whitman and included four poems, prose by Whitman and Horace Traubel, and a photograph of Whitman as a frontispiece. Whitman was clearly pleased and asked Lippincott's to send copies of the March issue to friends in England. Lippincott's, established in 1868 as a conservative magazine published in Philadelphia, was designed to compete with the successful Harper's Monthly Magazine and the Century Magazine. For seventeen years, Lippincott's was edited by John Foster Kirk, a novelist and a compiler of dictionaries of authors. The magazine became known for its excellent printing and fine woodcut illustrations. While Lippincott's published popular northern authors, such as Rebecca Harding Davis, Thomas Buchanan Read, and Harriet Prescott Spofford, the magazine also included western and southern writers as well, including Bret Harte and Sidney Lanier. By 1881, the magazine was suffering financial difficulties, and new editors introduced lighter fare, including travel literature and limited illustrations. From the late 1880s throughout the 1890s, the magazine tried to establish new ways to attract readers by printing an entire novel in each issue or by featuring individual writers. For example, Lippincott's introduced Sherlock Holmes to American audiences with the publication of The Sign of the Four and later featured many of the poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar. During the last year of his life, Whitman clearly hoped for more attention from Lippincott's; however, he was disappointed that the magazine did not publish an account of his birthday celebration in 1891.

Poems

"November Boughs." Lippincott's Magazine 40 (November 1887): 722-723. "November Boughs" was the title given to a collection of four poems first published in Lippincott's Magazine:

• "You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me." Reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888).

• "Going Somewhere." Reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888).

• "After the Supper and Talk." Reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888).

• "Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone." Reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888).

"To the Sunset Breeze." Lippincott's Magazine 46 (December 1890): 861. Reprinted in Good-Bye My Fancy (1891).

"Old-Age Echoes." Lippincott's Magazine 47 (March 1891): 376. "Old Age Echoes" was the title given to a collection of four poems first published in Lippincott's Magazine:

• "Sounds of the Winter." Reprinted in Good-bye My Fancy (1891).

• "The Unexpress'd." Reprinted in Good-bye My Fancy (1891).

• "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht." Reprinted in Good-bye My Fancy (1891).

• "After the Argument." Reprinted in Good-bye My Fancy (1891).

Bibliography

Blodgett, Harold W., and Sculley Bradley, eds. Leaves of Grass: Comprehensive Reader's Edition. New York: New York University Press, 1965.

Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Miller, Edwin Haviland, Ed. The Correspondence of Walt Whitman. Volume 5 (1890-92). New York: New York University Press, 1969.

Mott, Frank Luther. A History of American Magazines, 1865-1885. Volume 3. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938.

Myerson, Joel. Walt Whitman: A Descriptive Bibliography. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993.

Tebbel, John. The American Magazine: A Compact History. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1969.