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About the author
William Douglas O'Connor was an American author most recognized for his affiliation with Walt Whitman. In 1866, he wrote The Good Gray Poet, a pamphlet defending Whitman. William O'Connor was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 2, 1832, as the son of Peter D. O'Connor and an unknown mother. Little is known about his early years, except that he had a conflict with his father and left the family when he was eight years old. In 1856, he married Ellen M. Tarr and had two children. In the 1850s, he met Sarah Helen Whitman, the poet and romantic interest of Edgar Allan Poe. Following his departure, in 1860, O'Connor released Harrington: A Story of True Love, an antislavery romance. The following year, he met Walt Whitman, and the two became great friends. During the American Civil War, O'Connor served for the Treasury Department's United States Lighthouse Board. Whitman spent several months in Washington, D.C., living with O'Connor. O'Connor assisted Whitman in obtaining job as a clerk with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was enraged when James Harlan expelled Whitman from the Bureau in 1865, and he promptly produced The Good Gray Poet (1866), backing Whitman and criticizing Harlan.
