?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
WHITMAN, WALT. Brief Autograph Letter Signed, "WW," to George Henry Lewes: "I forward to you by mail to-day, addressed same as this card, a set of my Books, Two Volumes. Please send me word (by postal card will do) soon as they reach you safely." 1 page, oblong 12mo; faint toning along right edge, minor crease at lower right corner, addressed in holograph on verso, with cancelled 1-cent postage stamp bearing 1870 profile of Benjamin Franklin. Camden, 31 August 1876 [from postmark]
In April of 1876, although initially supporting the work of Walt Whitman, George Henry Lewes's domestic partner--the writer George Eliot--seemed to have become concerned about any judgment that her readers might form about her association with Whitman when she wrote to her publisher about removing a Whitman quote she had included as an epigram for a chapter in her new book, Daniel Deronda. In a reprinting of the book two years later, she replaced the Whitman quote, but Eliot continued to be occupied with maintaining the perception of Victorian propriety that Whitman bucked in his lifestyle and writings.
