Charles W. Chesnutt to Horace Traubel, 16 September 1905
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CHAS. W. CHESNUTT
1005 WILLIAMSON BUILDING
CLEVELAND, O.
Cleveland, September 16, 1905.
Horace Traubel, Esq.,
1624 Walnut Street,
Philadelphia, Pa.
My dear Mr. Traubel:-
My daughter Helen,1 who was visiting recently in Philadelphia, tells me that she came very near meeting you, but was called home by a telegram the day before she would have had that pleasure. She has given me a couple of photographs which I think Mr. Bolivar2 handed to her, and for which I thank you very much. It is a pleasure to look upon even the counterfeit presentment of the face of one whom I have learned to esteem from his writings, and who at the same time has shown his appreciation of my own. I hope to meet you personally before very long.
I see from the Conservator3 that the Walt Whitman books can be obtained from you. I should like to have a copy of the popular edition of Leaves of Grass, and a volume of ‸your own Chants Communal.4 I enclose money order for $2.25, which I hope includes sufficient for the postage.
Yours sincerely, Chas. W. Chesnutt.Correspondent: Horace Traubel (1858–1919) was an American poet, essayist, and author. Traubel was also a dedicated Socialist, and one of the founders of the socialist weekly newspaper The Worker. He is best known for being Walt Whitman's literary executor and author of a nine-volume biography of Whitman's final four years (1888–1892), entitled Walt Whitman in Camden.
1. Helen Maria Chesnutt (1880–1969) was Chesnutt's second child. She earned degrees from Smith College and Columbia University, taught Latin (including to Langston Hughes) at Cleveland Central High School for more than four decades, co-authored a Latin textbook, The Road to Latin, and served on the executive committee of the American Philological Association in 1920. She was her father's literary executor and first biographer.[back]
2. William C. Bolivar (1849–1914) was a collector of African-American authored texts. He also worked as a journalist, writing under the pseudonym "Pencil Pusher" in the Philadelphia Tribune and served as a key member in Philadelphia's American Negro Historical Society.[back]
3. The Conservator (1890-1919) was a monthly magazine, founded and edited by Horace M. Traubel (1858-1919).[back]
4. Horace Traubel's "authorized" reprint of Leaves of Grass was advertised in the last pages of the Conservator in 1905. The following page provides an advertisement for Traubel's Chant's Communal, which was a collection of many of the essays that Horace Traubel wrote for The Worker, a weekly socialist newspaper that he helped found. Each text cost one dollar, plus ten cents each for postage ("[Advertisements]," The Conservator 16 no. 1 [March 1905]: 14-15.).[back]
