^Lot 604 Walt Whitman

Bank check, 6.25 x 2.75, filled out and signed by Whitman, payable to order of WW Bennett for $18.00, May 5, 1888. Three vertical folds, one through a single letter of signature, cancellation cut to center, and some mild toning, otherwise fine condition. Union veteran William W. Bennett is listed as a comrade in the 1886 roster of Camden’s William B. Hatch Post No. 37, Grand Army of the Republic. The same day as writing this check, Whitman had a conversation with Horace Traubel, documented in With Walt Whitman in Cambridge by Traubel in 1906, he spoke of his opinion of Matthew Arnold, John Milton, Dante, and Verdi.