$2,772
Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500
Auction: May 20, 2021 1:00:00 PM EDT
No place, no date (ca. 1889). 4 1/2 x 6 in. (114 x 152 mm). Printed slip, titled, "At the Complimentary Dinner, Camden, New Jersey, May 31, 1889", annotated by Whitman in ink: "My friends though announced to give an address, there is no such intention", with the words "my friends" crossed out by him in the first sentence. Creasing from when folded; scattered minor wear. BAL 21521.
A corrected proof of To Be Present Only Whitman's response to an invitation to give an address at the complimentary dinner held in honor of his 70th birthday in Camden on 31 May 1889. Horace Traubel published Whitman's response as "At the Complimentary Dinner, Camden, New Jersey, May 31, 1889" in Camden's Compliment to Walt Whitman, May 31, 1889: Notes, Addresses, Letters, Telegrams (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1889). Whitman later collected this response in Complete Prose (1892), under the title "To Be Present Only." A proof sheet with the corrected text is held in the Library of Congress.