Collection of autograph letters of Walt Whitman to his mother Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, Abby Price and others : primarily Washington DC, and Camden, New Jersey, 1860-1902 1860-1876.

Collection consists of seven autograph letters signed from Walt Whitman to his mother Louisa Van Velsor Whitman; twenty-two to his friend Abby H. Price; and one each letter to an unidentified recipient, postal card to Sloane Kennedy, note to the National State Bank of Camden authorizing payment to E. E. Harned, and check signed. Collection also contains eleven letters from Louisa Van Velsor Whitman to Helen E. Price (Abby's daughter); as well as two letters of Peter Doyle. Whitman's letters to his mother concern family news and relate details of his life as a nurse in Washington; his letters to Abby Price concern his health, work in Washington, plans to stay with the Prices during visits to New York, and a few letters reference his grief at his mother's death. Louisa Van Velsor Whitman's letters to Helen concern her sadness at moving from Brooklyn to Camden, her rheumatism, and Walt's recovery from a paralytic stroke in January, 1873. With a reproduction of a photograph of Walt Whitman (MA 918.47). Letters in the collection have been described separately in 46 individual catalog records; see related records for more information.