Great Regulars: [Thomas Edison] realized that Walt Whitman,

the greatest American poet of his time, was in the last phase of his life. Edison sent his agents to record the voice of Whitman in 1889. Likewise he sent his agents to England in 1889-90 to record the voices of the British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladston (1809 - 1898) and English poets like Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning.

from V Sundaram: News Today: Edison's recordings of great poets

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