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Robert Buchanan to Walt Whitman, 28 April 1876

About This Item

  • Title: Robert Buchanan to Walt Whitman, 28 April 1876
  • Date: April 28, 1876
  • Creator(s): Robert Buchanan
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.01601
  • Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. . Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman Elizabeth Lorang Ashley Lawson Eder Jaramillo John Schwaninger Caterina Bernardini Marie Ernster Erel Michaelis Amanda J. Axley Stephanie Blalock
  • Cite this page: Buchanan, Robert. "Robert Buchanan to Walt Whitman, 28 April 1876." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 03 May 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.01601.xml (TEI)
 loc.01601.002_large_mflm.jpg 51 Upper Glcster Place Dorset Sq. April 28th Dear Whitman.

Enclosed is cheque for £25; statement annexed. You will merely have to endorse it, & the Philadelphia bankers will cash it—kindly acknowledge on receipt.—See my other letter,1 & address answer Care of Strahan & Co,2 34 Paternoster Road.

Ever yours Robert Buchanan Walt Whitman.

I shall wait anxiously for your instructions & statement of affairs.

( over

 loc.01601.003_large_mflm.jpg all sent in a package by Express Sept 5 '76

Mr Harry Lobb3 £1—1
Richard Bentley Esq.4 2—2
Mr Salaman5 1
Mr Browning6 2
Mrs Dickens7 1—1
Thomas Ashe8 1
Alfred Tennyson9 5
Townsend Mayer10 1—1
School of Art, Newman St, London. 18/
Wm Marks11 1
Mr Robinson12 1
Mr Drummond13 2
Messrs Newton, Coleman, & Hirsch,14 10/each. 1—10
Hon Roden Noel15 2—2
£22—15

Cheque enclosed for £25,—Mr Harry Lobb would like a copy of "Two Rivulets,"16 Salaman ditto, Mrs Dickens ditto, Ashe ditto, Mayer ditto, Marks ditto, Robinson ditto; Messrs Browning, Drummond, & Noel, the complete works.17 The others do not want copies, some having them already.—Send the books in a parcel addressed to Robert Buchanan, Care of Strahan & Co, Publishers, 34 Paternoster Row, tender; & I will distribute them.

R.B.

Correspondent:
Robert Buchanan (1841–1901), Scottish poet and critic, had lauded Whitman in the Broadway Annual in 1867, and in 1872 praised Whitman but attributed his poor reception in England to the sponsorship of William Michael Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne. See Harold Blodgett, Walt Whitman in England (1934), 79–80, and Gay Wilson Allen, The Solitary Singer (1955), 445–446. Swinburne's recantation later in 1872 may be partly attributable to Buchanan's injudicious remarks. For more on Buchanan, see Philip W. Leon, "Buchanan, Robert (1841–1901)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).

Notes

  • 1. It is uncertain which letter is being referred to here. [back]
  • 2. Alexander Strahan (1834–1914) was a London printer who published the Contemporary Review from 1866 to 1877. Strahan was also the printer for much of Robert Buchanan's writing, including his London Poems. [back]
  • 3. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]
  • 4. Richard Bentley & Son were London publishers. [back]
  • 5. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]
  • 6. The English poet Robert Browning (1812–1889), known for his dramatic monologues, including "Porphyria's Lover" and "My Last Duchess," was also the husband of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861). [back]
  • 7. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]
  • 8. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]
  • 9. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) succeeded William Wordsworth as poet laureate of Great Britain in 1850. The intense male friendship described in In Memoriam, which Tennyson wrote after the death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, possibly influenced Whitman's poetry. Whitman wrote to Tennyson in 1871 or late 1870, probably shortly after the visit of Cyril Flower in December, 1870, but the letter is not extant (see Thomas Donaldson, Walt Whitman the Man [New York: F. P. Harper, 1896], 223). Tennyson's first letter to Whitman is dated July 12, 1871. Although Tennyson extended an invitation for Whitman to visit England, Whitman never acted on the offer. [back]
  • 10. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]
  • 11. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]
  • 12. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]
  • 13. As yet we have no information about this person. [back]
  • 14. As yet we have no information about these people. [back]
  • 15. Roden Noel (1834–1894) was an English poet. Noel came from an aristocratic English family, and in his youth developed socialist sympathies. He was a close friend of the poet and influential critic Robert Buchanan, and it may have been through Buchanan that Noel first encountered Leaves of Grass in 1871 (the same year that he first wrote to Whitman). In 1871, Noel published an essay entitled "A Study of Walt Whitman" in The Dark Blue (Harold Blodgett, Walt Whitman in England [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1934], 147–149). [back]
  • 16. Published as a "companion volume" to the 1876 Author's edition of Leaves of Grass, Two Rivulets consisted of an "intertwining of the author's characteristic verse, alternated throughout with prose," as one critic from the The New York Daily Tribune wrote on February 19, 1876 (4). For more information on Two Rivulets, see Frances E. Keuling-Stout, "Two Rivulets, Author's Edition [1876]" and "Preface to Two Rivulets [1876]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
  • 17. During America's centennial celebration in 1876, Whitman reissued the fifth edition of Leaves of Grass in the repackaged form of a "Centennial Edition" and "Author's Edition," with most copies personally signed by the poet. For more information, see Frances E. Keuling-Stout, "Leaves of Grass, 1876, Author's Edition," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
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