Fine Books and Manuscripts

1 page, oblong 12mo (82 x 137 mm), with holograph address on verso, mounting remnants along edges, some staining and minor creasing, small scotch tape remnants left corners. Complying with a request ordering the 2- volume 1876 Centennial Edition of Leaves of Grass: "Yours recd with Enc. Thanks- I forward the two vols. by mail to-day to the same address as this card. Please notify me by postal soon as they reach you" A fragment of Forbes's letter to Whitman enclosing $10 for the 2 vol. Centennial Edition ("would you put your autograph on the fly leaf of each volume") is in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, Library of Congress. Whitman apparently cut Forbes's letter into pieces which were then pasted together with pieces from other letters upon which he wrote part of a prose draft titled "Poetry in America-Shakspere-the Future." The surrounding fragments are dated 1880.