The Solitary Singer: A Critical Biography of Walt Whitman

Aldrich is listed as one of Pfaff's "literary customers" who sat at the large, reserved table against the establishment's far wall. Allen mentions that Aldrich "later went to Boston and became 'respectable'" (229). Allen continues that Aldrich and Stoddard were most likely as "respectable" Howells, "and doubtless none of them were as wicked as they tried to appear" (231).

While at Pfaff's, Arnold is mentioned as being "quarrelsome" and his satirical wit was no match for Walt Whitman.

Benton was a friend and correspondent of John Burroughs. Allen reports that Burroughs wrote Benton several times in 1864 with his impressions of Whitman. Burroughs also asked Benton to arrange a lecture for Whitman in Poughkeepsie similar to those arranged in Washington. Acccording to Allen, nothing came of this request (309).

Allen writes that Whitman began frequenting Pfaff's at some point after Clapp, who had recently founded the Saturday Press made Pfaff's his "informal club and gathered around him a coterie of writers and wits reputed to be very sophisticated, irreverent, and 'Bohemian'" (229). Allen mentions that at this time, the term "Bohemian" was not a common American terms and had been imported from Paris with by Clapp and others, who returned from visits abroad "with contempt for its [America's] puritanism and a mania for shocking it" (229). Allen describes Clapp during this time as follows: "Clapp was a former New Englander who had been a sailor, had educated himself to be a freethinker and skeptic, had aquired a varied experience in journalism, had worked for a while with Horace Greeley and Albert Brisbane in trying to popularize the doctrines of Fourier and socialism, and was not attempting to edit a smart and sprightly literary and critical journal, which did manage to achieve considerable prestige but could seldom pay its contributors" (229).

Allen briefly discusses Howells' interactions with Clapp during his first and only visit to the Saturday Press offices and Pfaff's (230-231). Allen responds to Howells' criticisms of Clapp by writing: "Clapp must have had more character and ability than Howells thought. In Whitman's later opinion he had 'abilities way out of the common,' which in a different environment and with financial resources, 'might have loomed up as a central influence' on American literature. Howells might have been partly right in thinking that Clapp had taken Whitman up because he was so obnoxious to respectable society, and Whitman's gratitude may have led him to exaggerate Clapp's importance. But the editor of the Saturday Press, along with Ada Clare, Ned Wilkins, and several others, did render a service to the history of American literature by giving Whitman companionship and encouragement when he greatly needed them. In his old age Whitman told Traubel that his 'own history could be written with Henry left out.' Since no complete file of the Saturday Press has survived, it is not possible to trace every detail of Henry Clapp's editorial support of Whitman, bt it seems not to have developed unitl late in 1859" (231).

Allen mentions that there is proof Clapp received advance, unfinished copies of the Boston publication of the third edition of Leaves of Grass. Allen also discusses Clapp's strategy for publicizing the book, including his role in sending review copies to several important persons, including Mrs. Juliette H. Beach. During this time period, Clapp appears to have been preoccupied with keeping the Saturday Press in business and managing its financial difficulties. He was able to get a letter to Whitman in Boston via his brother George which discussed mainly his concerns about the stability of the paper, but also assured Whitman of his success and pledged to help him advance his book (242-244).

Allen feels that Clapp was most likely the author of a long article on Leaves of Grass that appeared in the Saturday Press on May 19, 1860. The article began: "We announce a great Philosopher - perhaps a great Poet - in every way an original man." The critic also admitted, however, that the book had passages "which should never have been published at all." The critic also claimed, though, that the poems showed "the philosophic mind, deeply seeking, reasoning, feeling its way toward a clear knowledge of the system of the universe" and celebrated the "felicity of style" in phrases such as "bare-bosomed Night," "slumbering and liquid trees," and "Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with blue!" (260). When the negative review attributed to Juliette Beach appeared in the paper, Clapp included the editorial comment that "It gives us pleasure to print every variety of opinion upon such subjects." The next week, he ran a correction after Mrs. Beach wrote the paper to explain that her husband had intercepted her copy of the book and had submitted his own review for publication. Mrs. Beach's own review most likely ran two weeks later, signed by "A Woman" (261).

Allen notes that Whitman was "no match for the mercurial Fitz-James O'Brien, satirical George Arnold, or perhaps even his sardonic friend Henry Clapp" (270).

In the fall of 1862, after the Saturday Press had dissolved, Clapp, Ada Clare, and several other Bohemians were writing and working at the Leader (273).

Allen reprints a September 30, 1865, letter from Curtis to Willaim O'Connor that responds to O'Connor's request for "advice and aid" in seeking a publisher for a draft of his essay The Good Gray Poet. Curtis was the editor of Harper's and wrote to O'Connor:

"The task you undertake is not easy, as you know. The public sympathy will be the Secretary for removing a man who will be considered an obscene author and a free lover. But your hearty vindication of free letters will not be less welcome to all liberal men.

"Personally I do not know Whitman and while his Leaves of Grass impressed me less than it impressed many better men than I, I have never heard anything of him but what was noble nor believed anything byt what was honorable.

"That a man should be expelled from office and held up to public contumely, because of an honest book which no candid mind can truly regard as hurtful to public morality, is an offense which demands exposure and censure."

According to Allen, "Curtis offered to do what he could 'to redress the wrong' that O'Connor had undertaken to right" (361-362).

Whitman heard Emerson lecture in New York.

Greeley worked for a while with Clapp and Brisbane to try to "popularize the doctrines of Fourier and socialism."

Leland was a Philadelphia writer who translated Heine, wrote a book on gypsies, and helped start an Industrial Art School in Philadelphia in 1881. He was a member of a circle of under-appreciated writers in Philadelphia who befriended Whitman in the 1870s (506). Allen mentions that Whitman read Leland's translation of Heine's Pictures of Travel in 1856 and notes some influence on Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking." Whitman also seems to have "admired" Leland for his "easy association with 'Bohemians and bummers'" (507-508).

The American Review (later the American Whig Review) was famous in 1845 because of the publication of Poe's "The Raven" in the February edition (65).

Whitman submitted a short essay on "Art-Music and Heart-Music" to the Broadway Journal in 1845. Poe was editing the paper, and printed the essay with an editorial endorsement. Whitman most likely called on Poe shortly after and wrote: "[Poe was] very cordial, in a quiet way...I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner, and matter; very kindly and human, but subdued, perhaps a little jaded" (71). Allen reprint's Poe's comments in note 20, p.552.

Whitman attended the public reburial of Poe's remains in Baltimore in 1876. Whitman was invited to sit on the platform at the event, but declined the offer to speak, as was reported in the November 16 Washington Star (the account was most likely written by Whitman himself). "Here he was reported to have said in an informal interview that he had long had a distaste for Poe's writings, in which he missed the sunlight, fresh air, and health, but he had recently come to appreciate Poe's special place in literary history" (468).

Raymond wrote in the New York Times that the rioters of July 13 and 14, 1863 were "not the people" as was reported in the World and the Tribune but "for the most part...the vilest elements of the city," which was to become the view of later historians (302).

On Decemeber 2, 1866, Raymond gave O'Connor four columns on the Sunday editorial page of the Times to review the new Leaves of Grass and discuss Whitman and included his own half-column endorsement of O'Connor's article, "though he still felt that the book was too indecent to be circulated freely." O'Connor's article was so persuasive and well-written that Raymond considered him for an editorial position at the Times (376).

Stanley is one of the departed Pfaffians Whitman writes about toasting with Pfaff during his 1881 visit (494).

Source: Whitman - CW 5:21

Winter, a "sentimental poet and later dramatic critic" is listed as one of the "literary customers" at Pfaff's (229).