Content:
This prose manuscript fragment, heavily revised, appears to be part of an early draft of the essay "Robert Burns," first published in the January 25, 1875 issue of
Our Land and Time
. Whitman revised and republished it several times. In
Complete Prose Works
(1892) the essay was titled "Robert Burns as Poet and Person." The draft is written on the reverse of the bottom half of a report by Secretary of the Treasury, George Boutwell, of the public debt as of January 31, 1871.
Content:
This prose scrap alludes to both Rabelais and Robert Burns. Here, Whitman
describes Burns' principle qualities as "animal appetites, lusts, and
bibulousness." In his essay, "Robert Burns as
Poet and Person," Whitman notes that Burns' poetry includes
"lyrics of illicit loves and carousing intoxication." This essay, with
the preliminary title of "Robert
Burns" first appeared in
The
Critic
(16 December 1882), but this
particular phrase does not appear in the essay "Robert Burns as Poet and Person" until
its publication in
The North American
Review
143 (November 1886), 429. This essay was later reprinted in
Democratic Vistas and Other Papers
(1888) and in
November Boughs
(1888). The essay was also retained, still
within
November Boughs
, in
Complete Prose Works
(1892).
Content:
This prose scrap quotes a March 1792 letter from Robert Burns to George Thompson. In the essay "Robert Burns as Poet
and Person," Whitman cites letters to Thompson, particularly letters
where Burns discusses his own early love poetry. This scrap is not
directly quoted in the essay, but there are allusions to it. The letters
are not mentioned in the preliminary publication of the essay, under the
title "Robert Burns", which appeared
in
The Critic
(16 December 1882; however, Thompson's letters figure in the essay "Robert Burns as Poet and Person"
published in
The North American Review
143 (November 1886), 429. This
essay was later reprinted in
Democratic Vistas
and Other Papers
(1888) and in
November Boughs
(1888). The essay was also retained, still within
November Boughs
, in
Complete Prose Works
(1892).
Content:
According to Grier, this scrap was found in an envelope with numerous
newspaper clippings about Robert Burns dating from March 25,
1836 to August 9, 1890 (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press], 3, 1140). The notes were apparently intended for a revision to the essay "Robert
Burns as Poet and Person," which appeared under the title
"Robert Burns" in
The Critic
(16 December 1882), and as
"Robert Burns as Poet and Person"
in
The North American Review
(November 1886). This essay was later reprinted in
Democratic Vistas and Other Papers
(1888) and in
November Boughs
(1888). The essay was also retained, still
within
November Boughs
, in
Complete Prose Works
(1892). The letter on the verso is dated June 10,
1884.
Content:
Fair copy prepared for publication in the
North American Review
of November 1886 under the title "Robert Burns as Poet and Person." The leaves that make up this manuscript incorporate parts of a previous version, published in the New York
Critic
of December 16, 1882. That essay was itself a revision of an essay published in
Our Land and Time
and the New York
Daily Graphic
on January 25, 1875. The first page of this manuscript bears a note written by James Redpath, the editor of the
North American Review
in 1886. Images of the versos are unavailable because the leaves have been mounted and bound in a volume that also includes a frontispiece from the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. A note on the volume's cover reads "Presented by James Redpath, to James Fraser Gluck for the Buffalo Library A. D. 1886."
Content:
This is a draft for the article entitled "Robert Burns" published on 16 December 1882 in
The Critic
. The draft contains annotated clippings from a previous article on Burns that Whitman had published on 25 January 1875 in
Our Land and Time
(the article was copied the same day in the New York
Daily Graphic
.) Parts of the previous 1875 article were used in the 1882 article. Later, Whitman revised the article again for publication in the
North American Review
in November 1886 under the title "Robert Burns as Poet and Person." The same title was kept for later versions published in
November Boughs, Democratic Vistas and Other Papers
in 1888; in
Complete Poems & Prose
in 1888 and in
Complete Prose Works
in 1891-1892. For more on this, see Gary Scharnhorst, "Whitman on Robert Burns: An Early Essay Recovered,"
Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
, 13 (Spring 1996), 4.
