Horace Traubel

Horace Logo Traubel (December 19, 1858 – September 8, 1919) was an American essayist, poet, magazine publisher, writer, and Georgist. Traubel was closely associated with the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States and published a monthly literary magazine called The Conservator from 1890 until the time of his death. Although a poet of note in his own right, Traubel is best remembered as the literary executor and biographer of his friend, poet Walt Whitman, with whom he transcribed and compiled nine volumes of daily conversations, entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden.

Biography Early years Horace L. Traubel was born in Camden, New Jersey on December 19, 1858, the son of an ethnic Jewish father and an ethnic German mother. His father, Maurice Traubel, had been born in Germany before emigrating to the United States as a young man, where he settled in Philadelphia and learned the trade of lithography.

Traubel married in 1891. He and his wife Anne had two children — a daughter who survived him and a son who died at the age of 5. Outside of marriage, Traubel carried on affairs with men and women, fathering illegitimate children.

Career Traubel began to write himself in the late 1880s, specializing in literary criticism and poetry.

During the years 1903 to 1907 Traubel was associated with another literary magazine, The Artsman, which he edited along with William Lightfoot Price and Hawley McLanahan.

Death and legacy During his last few years Traubel's health failed him. That fall he moved with his wife to stay with a friend in Norwich, Connecticut, but there his health became steadily worse.

In April 1919 Traubel moved to New York City staying at the apartment of his biographer, David Karsner. There he suffered a series of debilitating heart attacks from which he never fully recovered. About 1,000 people gathered at the scene, most of whom were present to attend the service, and a quick decision was made to relocate the funeral to the so-called "People's House," home of the Rand School of Social Science, located at 7 East 15th Street. Optimos. New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1910. Five Traubel Songs. New York: n.p., 1912. The Master of Money is Dead. New York: Albert Boni, 1913. Collects. Albert and Charles Boni, 1914. Walt Whitman on Himself: From the Camden Diary of Horace Traubel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1924. With Walt Whitman in Camden: January 21 to April 7, 1889. Sculley Bradley, ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953. Heart's Gate: Letters between Marsden Hartley & Horace Traubel, 1906-1915. Highlands, NC : Jargon Society, 1982.