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Walt Whitman to Harry Buxton Forman, 27 September 1891

About This Item

  • Title: Walt Whitman to Harry Buxton Forman, 27 September 1891
  • Date: September 27, 1891
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.02096
  • 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: Ryan Furlong Amanda J. Axley Stephanie Blalock
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman to Harry Buxton Forman, 27 September 1891." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 26 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.02096.xml (TEI)
 loc.02096.002_large.jpg Camden NJ—US America1 Sept: 27 '91

Y'rs of 8th came safe with pay for the books,2 (best thanks)—I send copy of the complete works,3 (for Maurice4)—& copies unbound of the little "Good–Bye"5 with more—Others will follow, especially a new fuller version of L of G. now in press6

—I am physically an almost complete wreck (right arm & mentality & fair spirits left)—Respects & love to you & y'rs

Walt Whitman  loc.02096.001_large.jpg

Correspondent:
Henry Buxton Forman (1842–1917), also known as Harry Buxton Forman, was most notably the biographer and editor of Percy Shelley and John Keats. On February 21, 1872, Buxton sent a copy of R. H. Horne's The Great Peace-Maker: A Sub-marine Dialogue (London, 1872) to Whitman. This poetic account of the laying of the Atlantic cable has a foreword written by Forman. After his death, Forman's reputation declined primarily because, in 1934, booksellers Graham Pollard and John Carter published An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets, which exposed Forman as a forger of many first "private" editions of poetry.

Notes

  • 1. This postal card is addressed: H Buxton Forman | 46 Marlborough Hill | St John's Wood | London England | NW. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Sep28 | 12 PM | 91; Philadelphia, P.A. | Sep28 | 3PM | 91 | [illegible]. [back]
  • 2. In Forman's letter of September 8, 1891, he sent "about 15 dollars" for "'Good bye, my Fancy!' [...] in cloth as issued, with your name & mine written in it if the old indulgent mood holds, and two copies of the untrimmed sheets not bound. Then I want, if it is to be had, six copies of 'A Backward Glance' as printed on thin paper to be annexed to L. of G. (pocket book edition)—they need not be stitched or done up any way, but on one I should like your name & mine on the title–leaf. There are several minor works, or rather separate works, which I fancy you still have, & of which one copy each similarly inscribed would be very welcome: These are 'Passage to India,' 'Democratic Vistas,' 'After All &c.,' & 'As a Strong Bird.'" He also requested "the big book—Complete Poems and Prose" for his youngest son, Maurice Buxton Forman, who was about to embark upon international travels. [back]
  • 3. Whitman's Complete Poems & Prose (1888), a volume Whitman often referred to as the "big book," was published by the poet himself—in an arrangement with publisher David McKay, who allowed Whitman to use the plates for both Leaves of Grass and Specimen Days—in December 1888. With the help of Horace Traubel, Whitman made the presswork and binding decisions for the volume. Frederick Oldach bound the book, which included a profile photo of the poet on the title page. For more information on the book, see Ed Folsom, Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman: A Catalog and Commentary (University of Iowa: Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, 2005). [back]
  • 4. Maurice Buxton Forman, H. Buxton Forman's son, was a postal worker in England, a bibliographer, and an editor. He was posthumously implicated in his father's literary counterfeit enterprise. [back]
  • 5. Whitman's book Good-Bye My Fancy (1891) was his last miscellany, and it included both poetry and short prose works commenting on poetry, aging, and death, among other topics. Thirty-one poems from the book were later printed as "Good-Bye my Fancy" in Leaves of Grass (1891–1892), the last edition of Leaves of Grass published before Whitman's death in March 1892. For more information see, Donald Barlow Stauffer, "'Good-Bye my Fancy' (Second Annex) (1891)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
  • 6. The 1891–1892 Leaves of Grass was copyrighted in 1891 and published by Phildelphia publisher David McKay in 1892. This volume, often referred to as the "deathbed" edition, reprints, with minor revisions, the 1881 text from the plates of Boston publisher James R. Osgood. Whitman also includes his two annexes in the book. The first annex, called "Sands at Seventy," consisted of sixty-five poems that had originally appeared in November Boughs (1888); while the second, "Good-Bye my Fancy," was a collection of thirty-one short poems taken from the gathering of prose and poetry published under that title by McKay in 1891, along with a prose "Preface Note to 2d Annex." Whitman concluded the 1891–92 volume with his prose essay "A Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads," which had originally appeared in November Boughs. For more information on this volume of Leaves, see R.W. French, "Leaves of Grass, 1891–1892, Deathbed Edition," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
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