Sale 2530 - Fine Books & Manuscripts, February 20, 2020

SENDING “DEATH’S VALLEY”: “WILL THIS DO?” 157 c   WHITMAN, WALT. Autograph Letter Signed, to the Editor of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (“Dear Sir”), sending a poem [not present] and requesting payment of $25. ½ page, 4to; faint scattered soiling, some toning at edges, folds, abrasion from Whitman’s having rubbed out a mistake in the payment amount; matted and framed. Camden, 29 August 1889 [3,000/4,000] “Y’rs of yesterday rec’d with picture suggesting piece (illustration in text). Will this do? I shall want proof (wh’ don’t forget)—the price is $25.” In response to the August 25 letter from Harper’s editor Henry Mills Alden soliciting a poem, Whitman sent his “Death’s Valley” on August 29. This poem was first published in the April 1892 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine . Published in Walt Whitman: The Correspondence. Ed. Edwin Haviland Miller. New York: New York University Press, 1969. No. 2100.