Rebel Souls
Page 32
56 Ludlow began to secretly dabble: Helen Ludlow to Rev. Leander Hall, June 1, 1876, Special Collections, Union College Schaffer Library.
56 During the autumn of 1858: Gene Smith, American Gothic: The Story of America’s Legendary Theatrical Family—Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 70.
56 The elder Booth: Description of Junius Brutus Booth from multiple sources, including Eleanor Ruggles, Prince of Players: Edwin Booth (New York: W. W. Norton, 1953).
57 “His genius was to me”: CW, Prose Works, 1892, 2:597.
58 “You see before you”: James Cross Giblin, Good Brother, Bad Brother: The Story of Edwin Booth & John Wilkes Booth (New York: Clarion Books, 2005), 23.
58 “Come see Edwin Booth”: Ibid., 47.
59 “I think I am a little quieter”: Otis Skinner, The Last Tragedian: Booth Tells His Own Story (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1939), 8.
59 “I was neglected”: Ibid., 84.
59 “Mr. Booth, who was cast”: Stanley Kimmel, The Mad Booths of Maryland (New York: Dover, 1969), 122.
59 called his friend a “splendid savage”: Ruggles, Prince of Players, 127.
59 “I wish I could write”: Skinner, Last Tragedian, 92.
60 John was five years younger: Description of John Wilkes Booth as a boy from multiple sources, including Asia Booth Clarke, John Wilkes Booth: A Sister’s Memoir (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996).
60 “loved of the Southern people”: Ibid., 77.
60 “I must have fame, fame!”: Gordon Samples, Lust for Fame: The Stage Career of John Wilkes Booth (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1982), 20.
61 “There was that touch”: Ibid., 7.
61 He took up with a militia: John Wilkes Booth at John Brown’s hanging from multiple sources, including Michael Kauffman, American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies (New York: Random House, 2004).
61 “I John Brown”: Tony Horwitz, Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War (New York: Henry Holt, 2011), 256.
62 “Poor Walt!”: WWC, 1:237.
CHAPTER 5: BOLD WOMEN AND WHITMAN’S BEAUTIFUL BOYS
63 spots exclusively for women: Discussion of these from multiple sources, including Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
64 purchase a “growler”: Christine Sismondo, America Walks into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies, and Grog Shops (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 222.
64 A lady’s entrance: History Today, February 1995.
64 calling it “Stag-Nation”: SP, September 2, 1865.
65 Clare was born: Account of her youth from multiple sources, including Gloria Goldblatt, “Ada Clare: Queen of Bohemia” (unpublished manuscript, 1990, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts).
65 Ada Agnes McElhenney: While most accounts claim that her birth name was Jane McElhenney, it was Ada Agnes McElhenney, according to an authoritative account, ibid.
65 “a series of little acts”: Ibid., 22.
66 “one of the most beautiful”: Albert Parry, Garrets and Pretenders: A History of Bohemianism in America (New York: Covici, Friede, 1933), 17.
66 “evil influences”: American Magazine, January 1896.
66 “a tyrant and slayer”: SP, November 17, 1860.
66 “a frankness of speech”: Goldblatt, “Ada Clare,” iv.
66 “right nose for a trim”: Charles Warren Stoddard, “Ada Clare, Queen of Bohemia,” National Magazine, September 1905.
67 “an amiable audience”: Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Notes of a Pianist (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1881), 240.
67 “the most charming types”: Ibid., 287.
67 “Miss Ada Clare and son”: National Magazine, September 1905.
68 “I thought I was an oracle”: SP, July 16, 1859.
68 “Remember me while I”: Francis Wolle, Fitz-James O’Brien: A Literary Bohemian of the Eighteen-Fifties (Boulder: University of Colorado Studies, 1944), 130.
68 “It was an immaculate”: Goldblatt, “Ada Clare,” iv.
68 summer of 1859: Multiple sources cite this as the date of Menken’s first visit to Pfaff’s, including Mark Lause, The Antebellum Crisis and America’s First Bohemians (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009), 57.
68 Clare gets credit: Goldblatt, “Ada Clare,” 111.
69 Dolores Adios Los Fuertes: Bernard Falk, The Naked Lady: Life Story of Adah Menken (London: Hutchinson, 1934), 24.
69 granddaughter of a Revolutionary War hero: New York Times, September 6, 1868.
69 orphan in a convent: Wolf Mankowitz, Mazeppa: The Lives, Loves, and Legends of Adah Isaacs Menken (London: Blond & Briggs, 1982), 13.
69 She translated the “Iliad”: Richard Northcott, Adah Isaacs Menken: An Illustrated Biography (London: Press Printers, 1921), 5.
69 “She speaks French, Spanish”: Wisconsin Daily Patriot, May 2, 1860.
69 Marie Rachel Adelaide: New York Times, September 6, 1868.
69 June 15, 1835: Multiple accounts agree, including the most authoritative Menken biography, Michael Foster and Barbara Foster, A Dangerous Woman: The Life, Loves, and Scandals of Adah Isaacs Menken (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2011).
70 a bareback rider: Ibid., 21.
71 “Will He never come?”: Gregory Eiselein, ed., Infelicia, and Other Writings: Adah Isaacs Menken (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2002), 130.
71 “She is a sensitive poet”: Jewish Virtual Library, accessed online.
72 “Adah was a symbol”: Article by R. H. Newell, publication and date unknown, Brown University, John Hay Library, Special Collections.
72 “A woman of personal attractions”: James Murdock, The Stage (Philadelphia: J. M. Stoddart, 1880), 286.
72 “full of southern passion”: Alan Lloyd, The Great Prize Fight (London: Souvenir Press, 1977), 2.
73 “The girls have been”: WWC, 3:117.
74 “no inconsiderable share”: Walt Whitman, New York Dissected (New York: Rufus Rockwell Wilson, 1936), 131.
74 in separate compartments: For a thoughtful discussion of how the two separate rooms at Pfaff’s mirror the divisions Whitman maintained in his personal life, see Karen Karbiener’s essay “Whitman at Pfaff’s,” published in Literature of New York, edited by Sabrina Fuchs Abrams (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2009).
74 “the shrine to which”: Parry, Garrets and Pretenders, 17.
74 “There was no formality”: Thomas Donaldson, Walt Whitman the Man (New York: Francis P. Harper, 1896), 208.
74 Café Lafitte in Exile: Discussion of history of gay bars from multiple sources, including Sismondo, America Walks into a Bar.
75 two men even lived together: Fred Vaughan to WW, November 16, 1874, WW Papers, Charles E. Feinberg Collection, LOC.
75 one of the people he showed it to: Ibid.
76 “I never stole, robbed, cheated”: Fred Vaughan to WW, undated letter believed to be from the early 1870s, WW Papers, Feinberg Collection, LOC.
76 “My love my Walt”: Fred Vaughan to WW, November 16, 1874, WW Papers, Feinberg Collection, LOC.
76 group of young men that included Fred Gray: Some accounts of Whitman’s life represent this group as more formal than it was, referring to it as the “Fred Gray Association.” This is based on a misinterpretation of a letter Whitman wrote in which he referred to “my friends of Fred Gray association” (lower case association). See WW to William O’Connor, September 11, 1864, in CW, The Correspondence, 1:241.
76 described them as “beautiful”: CW, Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, 1:454.
76 “quiet lambent electricity”: WW to Hugo Fritsch, October 8, 1863, CW, The Correspondence, 1:158.
&nbs
p; 76 “my darlings and gossips”: WW to Nathaniel Bloom and Fred Gray, March 19, 1863, ibid., 82.
76 “my darling, dearest boys”: Ibid., 84.
76 “the unconscious, uncultured, natural types”: Edward Carpenter, Days with Walt Whitman (New York: Macmillan, 1908), 67.
77 “Tom Egbert, conductor”: CW, Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, 2:481.
77 “Mark Graynor, young”: Ibid., 489.
77 “Saturday night Mike Ellis”: Ibid., 1:454.
77 “Dan’l Spencer . . . ”: Ibid., 2:487.
CHAPTER 6: THE SATURDAY PRESS
80 “next door to the Saturday Press”: SP, August 27, 1859.
80 Boston remained the nation’s cultural capital: Discussion from multiple sources, including Stephen Puleo, A City So Grand: The Rise of an American Metropolis, Boston, 1850–1900 (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004).
80 “It was impossible to fire”: Elizabeth Webber and Mike Feinsilber, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Allusions (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1999), 31.
81 The Atlantic was “born mature”: Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865 (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1936), 484.
81 according to one count: Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1850–1865 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 495.
81 “conversation set in”: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, The “Atlantic Monthly” and Its Makers (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1919), 23.
81 “firm but courteous”: Mark Lause, The Antebellum Crisis and America’s First Bohemians (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2009), 78.
81 “will not rank itself”: Atlantic Monthly, November 1857.
81 “He was brilliant and buoyant”: William Winter, Old Friends: Being Literary Recollections of Other Days (New York: Moffat, Yard, 1909), 58.
82 “often sparkled with wit”: Junius Henri Browne, The Great Metropolis: A Mirror of New York (Hartford, CT: American, 1869), 58.
82 “the organ of Bohemia”: Philadelphia Express quoted in SP, December 31, 1859.
82 “I had not seen”: SP, November 13, 1858.
82 “prince would most undoubtedly”: SP, January 1, 1859.
83 “Ode to a Tobacco Pipe”: Ibid.
83 “Beer”: SP, January 1, 1859.
83 “All of Washington’s greatness”: SP, June 16, 1860.
83 “The Bohemian was by nature”: SP, February 11, 1860.
84 “The number of things”: SP, January 14, 1860.
84 “the great body of men”: SP, March 17, 1860.
84 “There is a horribly pernicious”: SP, May 19, 1860.
85 “a specimen of what”: SP, May 28, 1859.
85 “wasted two hours”: Lause, The Antebellum Crisis, 78.
85 “New York is such”: SP, July 21, 1860.
85 “A most frightful mass”: SP, July 7, 1860.
86 “The December [1858] number”: SP, December 25, 1858.
86 he called “fresh blood”: Laura Stedman and George Gould, Life and Letters of Edmund Clarence Stedman (New York: Moffat, Yard, 1910), 2:208.
87 “Go to Pfaff’s!” SP, September 24, 1859.
87 “’Twas the voice”: Winter, Old Friends, 294.
88 “You may not know it”: SP, October 29, 1859.
88 “Men of an indomitable”: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, October 1859.
88 “The true Bohemian”: New York Times, January 6, 1858.
89 “This is the capital”: Boston Saturday Express article reprinted in SP, December 3, 1859.
90 “It is not too much”: William Dean Howells, Literary Friends and Acquaintences: A Personal Retrospect of American Authorship (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917), 70.
90 “The thought of Boston”: Ibid., 71.
90 “Oh, a couple of shysters”: Ibid.
90 “I felt that as”: Ibid., 72.
91 “We were joined by”: Ibid., 72–73.
91 “I did not know”: Ibid., 74.
91 published in an 1895 Harper’s: The material cited above that Howells used in his book Literary Friends and Acquaintances first appeared in his article for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, June 1895.
92 “Answering, the sea”: Note that the passage reprinted in this book is meant to be identical to how the poem appeared in the Saturday Press of December 24, 1859. Subsequent versions, from other Whitman editions, may differ slightly in terms of line breaks, punctuation, and spacing.
CHAPTER 7: LEAVES, THIRD EDITION
95 “Dear Sir. We want”: Thayer & Eldridge to WW, February 10, 1860, WW Papers, Charles E. Feinberg Collection, LOC.
95 The firm Thayer & Eldridge: Description from multiple sources, including Albert von Frank’s essay “The Secret World of Radical Publishers: The Case of Thayer and Eldridge of Boston,” in Boston’s Histories: Essays in Honor of Thomas H. O’Connor (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004).
96 They signed her right up: Gloria Goldblatt, “Ada Clare: Queen of Bohemia” (unpublished manuscript, 1990, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts), 137.
96 more like York Minster cathedral: Justin Kaplan, Walt Whitman: A Life (New York: Perennial, 1979), 230.
96 “inchoates,” as he put it, or “little pittance editions”: SP, January 7, 1860.
97 “Founding a new American Religion”: CW, Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, 6:2046.
97 “Shall I make”: Kaplan, Walt Whitman, 228.
98 Within a month: Details of Whitman’s Boston stay from multiple sources, including Ted Genoways, Walt Whitman and the Civil War: America’s Poet During the Lost Years of 1860–1862 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009).
98 The typefaces for the volume: Ed Folsom, “Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman: A Catalog and Commentary,” accessed online at the Walt Whitman Archive.
98 Whitman’s clusters mirror: For astute analysis on WW’s compartmentalized life and how that affected his poetry, see Karen Karbiener’s essay “Whitman at Pfaff’s,” published in Literature of New York, edited by Sabrina Fuchs Abrams (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2009).
99 “The printers and foremen”: WW to Jeff Whitman, May 10, 1860, CW, The Correspondence, 1:52.
99 “seems to me”: WW to Jeff Whitman, April 1, 1860, ibid., 51.
99 “I quite long for it”: Jeff Whitman to WW, April 3, 1860, ibid., 51.
100 “Moral Sentiment”: Genoways, Walt Whitman and the Civil War, 28.
100 As the two men strolled: Details of WW’s walk with Emerson from multiple sources, including the Conservator, May 1896.
100 “It was an argument-statement”: Critic, December 3, 1881.
100 “I need not say”: Henry Clapp Jr. to WW, March 27, 1860, WW Papers, Feinberg Collection, LOC.
101 “What I can do for it”: Clapp to WW, May 12, 1860, printed in WWC, 4:196.
101 “Emerson’s face always seemed”: WWC, 2:105–106.
101 “great hopes of Whitman”: Clara Barrus, Whitman and Burroughs: Comrades (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 38.
101 “7 cents for a cup”: WW to Jeff Whitman, May 10, 1860, CW, The Correspondence, 1:53.
101 “For when Father Taylor”: CW, Prose Works, 1892, 2:551.
102 “physiognomies, forms, dress, gait”: Ibid.
102 One other notable event: Details of Sanborn extradition hearing and WW’s attendance at the event from multiple sources, including Boston’s Histories: Essays in Honor of Thomas H. O’Connor (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004).
102 “wearing his loose jacket”: Ibid., 60.
102 The official publication date: Genoways, Walt Whitman and the Civil War, 41.
103 “love-flesh swelling”: Leaves of Grass (1860), 295.
10
3 “slow rude muscle”: Ibid., 303.
103 “delirious juice” and “limitless limpid jets”: Ibid., 295.
103 “bellies pressed and glued”: Ibid., 305.
104 “One flitting glimpse”: Ibid., 371.
105 “essentially the greatest poem”: Leaves of Grass (1855), iii, reproduction of an original printing, accessed online at the Walt Whitman Archive.
105 “And a shrill song”: Leaves of Grass (1860), 10.
105 “States! Were you looking”: Ibid., 349.
105 “Inextricable lands! the clutched together!”: Ibid., 18.
105 “Smut in Them”: Springfield (MA) Daily Republican, June 16, 1860, accessed online at the Whitman Archive.
105 “Walt. Whitman’s Dirty Book”: Cincinnati Commercial, November 29, 1860.
105 “Mr. Whitman sees nothing vulgar”: New York Times, May 19, 1860.
106 “Why, these ‘poems’”: Boston Wide World, December 8, 1860, accessed online at the Whitman Archive.
106 drunk in a “cellar”: Westminster Review, October 1, 1860, accessed online at the Whitman Archive.
106 “Clapp seemed almost”: Frances Winwar, American Giant (New York: Harper and Bros., 1941), 228.
106 “little Willie, weakest”: Van Wyck Brooks, The Times of Melville and Whitman (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1947), 213.
106 “that odoriferous classic”: William Winter, Old Friends: Being Literary Recollections of Other Days (New York: Moffat, Yard, 1909), 89.
107 “I celebrate the Fourth”: SP, July 7, 1860.
107 “I Happify Myself”: SP, June 2, 1860.
108 “Henry was right”: WWC, 1:237.
CHAPTER 8: YEAR OF METEORS
109 For Adah Menken: Update of Menken’s 1860 activities from multiple sources, including Michael Foster and Barbara Foster, A Dangerous Woman: The Life, Loves, and Scandals of Adah Isaacs Menken (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2011).
110 The sport was especially: Details about bare-fisted boxing from multiple sources, including Alan Lloyd, The Great Prize Fight (London: Souvenir Press, 1977).
111 On January 4, high noon: New York Times, January 4, 1860.
111 “Spirits, porter, gross feeding”: Fistiana; or, The Oracle of the Ring (London: Wm. Clement, 1841), 93.
111 called slaveholders “tyrannical”: Hinton Helper, The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It (New York: A. B. Burdick, 1860), 25.