WHITMAN, WALT. 1819-1892 Autograph Letter Signed ("Walt Whitman") to John Burroughs agreeing in principle to his Lincoln lecture, and suggesting the April 14 date ("the anniversary ... of Lincoln's murder"), 2 pp, 202 x 130 mm, 431 Stevens St, Camden, NJ, February 24, 1878, with original transmittal envelope in Whitman's autograph.
Provenance: William F. Gable, sold his sale, American Art Association, New York, April 16, 1925, lot 517; Estelle Doheny, sold her sale, Christie's, New York, October 17, 1988.
WHITMAN'S FIRST LETTER ON THE LINCOLN LECTURES, SUGGESTED BY BURROUGHS IN FEBRUARY 1878. Whitman as a poet was inexorably tied to Abraham Lincoln. In Lincoln's death, Whitman recognized the rebirth of Democracy and the nation. He wrote his most famous poem, "O Captain, My Captain" in 1865, and its publication captured the attention of the public, to which he had largely been an obscene poet, if seen at all. Whitman's Lincoln poems helped cement him as the poet of the democratic vision, and helped shape his image of the great American poet.
Lincoln's friend Peter Doyle a streetcar conductor and muse who elicited some of Whitman's most powerful work, was at Ford's Theater the night of Lincoln's murder. Whitman used Doyle's first-hand account as the centerpiece for a reminiscence on the great President, which was published as part of Memoranda in 1876 (and excerpted in the New York Sun). At the suggestion of Burroughs and Richard Watson Gilder, Whitman adapted the work into a public lecture, a powerful look back at the events leading to the murder of the President, and usually ending with the reading of "O Captain, My Captain." The genesis of those lectures, important blocks in the formation of the public Walt Whitman, is seen here in his response to their proposal. Because of an injury, Whitman was not "ready to splurge April 14th or 15th," but the group did follow through with their preparations for his first Death of Abraham Lincoln lecture on April 15, 1879.
Whitman delivered the lecture numerous times over the ensuing 11 years, until his final performance on April 14, 1890, where he had trouble climbing to the podium. The lecture of April 14, 1887, at Madison Square Garden is widely considered to be the pinnacle of Whitman's lectures, described as "Barnumesque," attendees included James Russell Lowell, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mark Twain, Frank Stockton, Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer, General William T. Sherman, Lincoln's biographer and former private secretary John Hay, the future Cuban revolutionary José Marti, and the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (see lot xxx).
WHITMAN, WALT. 1819-1892 Autograph Letter Signed ("Walt Whitman") to John Burroughs agreeing in principle to his Lincoln lecture, and suggesting the April 14 date ("the anniversary ... of Lincoln's murder"), 2 pp, 202 x 130 mm, 431 Stevens St, Camden, NJ, February 24, 1878, with original transmittal envelope in Whitman's autograph.
Provenance: William F. Gable, sold his sale, American Art Association, New York, April 16, 1925, lot 517; Estelle Doheny, sold her sale, Christie's, New York, October 17, 1988.
WHITMAN'S FIRST LETTER ON THE LINCOLN LECTURES, SUGGESTED BY BURROUGHS IN FEBRUARY 1878. Whitman as a poet was inexorably tied to Abraham Lincoln. In Lincoln's death, Whitman recognized the rebirth of Democracy and the nation. He wrote his most famous poem, "O Captain, My Captain" in 1865, and its publication captured the attention of the public, to which he had largely been an obscene poet, if seen at all. Whitman's Lincoln poems helped cement him as the poet of the democratic vision, and helped shape his image of the great American poet.
Lincoln's friend Peter Doyle a streetcar conductor and muse who elicited some of Whitman's most powerful work, was at Ford's Theater the night of Lincoln's murder. Whitman used Doyle's first-hand account as the centerpiece for a reminiscence on the great President, which was published as part of Memoranda in 1876 (and excerpted in the New York Sun). At the suggestion of Burroughs and Richard Watson Gilder, Whitman adapted the work into a public lecture, a powerful look back at the events leading to the murder of the President, and usually ending with the reading of "O Captain, My Captain." The genesis of those lectures, important blocks in the formation of the public Walt Whitman, is seen here in his response to their proposal. Because of an injury, Whitman was not "ready to splurge April 14th or 15th," but the group did follow through with their preparations for his first Death of Abraham Lincoln lecture on April 15, 1879.
Whitman delivered the lecture numerous times over the ensuing 11 years, until his final performance on April 14, 1890, where he had trouble climbing to the podium. The lecture of April 14, 1887, at Madison Square Garden is widely considered to be the pinnacle of Whitman's lectures, described as "Barnumesque," attendees included James Russell Lowell, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mark Twain, Frank Stockton, Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer, General William T. Sherman, Lincoln's biographer and former private secretary John Hay, the future Cuban revolutionary José Marti, and the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (see lot xxx).
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
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