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Harry Buxton Forman to Walt Whitman, 8 September 1891

About This Item

  • Title: Harry Buxton Forman to Walt Whitman, 8 September 1891
  • Date: September 8, 1891
  • Creator(s): Harry Buxton Forman
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.02103
  • 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: Andrew David King Cristin Noonan Stephanie Blalock Amanda J. Axley
  • Cite this page: Forman, Harry Buxton. "Harry Buxton Forman to Walt Whitman, 8 September 1891." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 03 May 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.02103.xml (TEI)
 loc.02103.001_large.jpg 46 Marlborough Hill St. John's Wood London N.W. 8 September 1891.1

That birthday bit in Lippincott2 is a capital thing, and most satisfactory for friends over sea who wanted some direct words, & evidence as to health &c. Friend Traubel3 has done his photographing well and deserves our thanks.4 Conway's5 is the only bit that reads just a little stilted & as if written with one eye turned inwards & the other one half on you & half on the public. Well, well! Now this is not very charitable, and after all it's a jolly, hearty, manly crowd that we see through Traubel's pages, gathering round your revered form, dear Walt Whitman. Last time I wrote I was going to the Vienna Postal Congress. Since I came back I have  loc.02103.002_large.jpg had Bucke6 staying with me & giving me all the last news of you & renewing old memories (grand times!); & while I was there at Vienna I met "an Americano [not] one of the roughs,"7 but one who knows you. This was William Potter8 of Philadelphia, who was one of Wanamaker's9 Delegate's to the Congress—one of the United States' Delegates, to speak strictly. He is a real good fellow: he was the best friend made at the Congress this time.

The money I'm sending in this letter (about 15 dollars) is chiefly for "Good bye, my Fancy!"10 which I am without, though I have seen Bucke's copy. I want a copy 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  loc.02103.003_large.jpg to be had, six copies of "A Backward Glance"11 as printed on thin paper to be annexed to L. of G. (pocket book edition12)—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,"13 "Democratic Vistas,"14 "After All &c.,"15 & "As a Strong Bird."16

Lastly, my youngest son, Maurice Buxton Forman,17 is likely to go out into this world soon—most probably to Egypt: he is now nearly 20. When he goes I want him to have the big book—Complete Poems and Prose;18 and if it were attached to him by your own hand in the same way the effect on his mind would be good.  loc.02103.004_large.jpg He is studiously disposed, and it is about time he began on the Leaves; indeed he has begun. So I want to buy him his copy, for a part of his essential outfit, whether you write on it or not. Now if it chances that you do all I am asking, and the money does not run to it, as well might be, the mention of the figure minus will bring the rest by first-post.

Ever in affectionate respect H. Buxton Forman19  loc.02103.005_large.jpg  loc_tb.00188.jpg see notes Oct 3 1891

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 letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle Street | Camden | New Jersey | United States of America. It is postmarked: [illegible]; CAMDEN | SEP 21 | 4 PM | 91 | REC'D. There are two additional postmarks, neither of which are legible; one contains the visible characters "NEWYO," while the other contains the visible characters "ALL." [back]
  • 2. Lippincott's Monthly Magazine was a literary magazine published in Philadelphia from 1868 to 1915. Joseph Marshall Stoddart was the editor of the magazine from 1886 to 1894, and he frequently published material by and about Whitman. For more information on Whitman's numerous publications here, see Susan Belasco, "Lippincott's Magazine." [back]
  • 3. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919) was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations, which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914). After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel, see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
  • 4. Horace Traubel's article "Walt Whitman's Birthday, May 31, 1891," was published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in August 1891. It was a detailed account of Whitman's seventy-second (and last) birthday, which was celebrated with friends at the poet's home on Mickle Street. [back]
  • 5. Moncure Daniel Conway (1832–1907) was an American abolitionist, minister, and frequent correspondent with Walt Whitman. Conway often acted as Whitman's agent and occasional public relations man in England. For more on Conway, see Philip W. Leon, "Conway, Moncure Daniel (1832–1907)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
  • 6. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany. Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
  • 7. Forman is referring to the line from Whitman's "Song of Myself," that reads, in the 1855 version of the poem, "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos." [back]
  • 8. William Potter (1852–1926) was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison to serve as a special commissioner to London, Paris, and Berlin on behalf of the Post Office Department, and he served as a delegate to the 1891 Vienna Postal Union Congress, which set protocols for the handling of transatlantic mail. He then served as ambassador to Italy and undertook important archaeological research in Rome. He was elected to the Board of Trustees of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and served as the college's president from 1897 to 1926. Active in Philadelphia arts, business, and charitable organizations, he ran for mayor of the city in 1905. [back]
  • 9. Forman is referring here to John Wanamaker (1838–1922), who served as U.S. Postmaster General from 1889 to 1893. [back]
  • 10. 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]
  • 11. Forman refers here to Whitman's essay titled "A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads." [back]
  • 12. 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]
  • 13. Written to commemorate the opening of the Suez Canal in November 1869, "Passage to India" was, according to Walt Whitman's April 22, 1870, letter to Moncure D. Conway, the poet's attempt to "celebrate in my own way, the modern engineering masterpieces . . . the great modern material practical energy & works." The poem appeared first in 1871 in a separate publication containing the title poem, some new poems, and several poems previously published in Leaves of Grass. "Passage to India" was subsequently included in a 120-page supplement to the fifth edition of Leaves of Grass in 1871. For more information, see John B. Mason, "'Passage to India' (1871)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
  • 14. Whitman's Democratic Vistas was first published in 1871 in New York by J.S. Redfield. The volume was an eighty-four-page pamphlet based on three essays, "Democracy," "Personalism," and "Orbic Literature," all of which Whitman intended to publish in the Galaxy magazine. Only "Democracy" and "Personalism" appeared in the magazine. For more information on Democratic Vistas, see Arthur Wrobel, "Democratic Vistas [1871]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
  • 15. Whitman's poem "After All, Not to Create Only," was printed on the same day, September 7, 1871, in the New York Evening Post and New York Commercial Advertiser. It was reprinted in several newspapers and as a pamphlet, After All, Not to Create Only (1871); as "Song of the Exposition" in Two Rivulets (1876); and with some revisions in Leaves of Grass (1881–82). [back]
  • 16. Whitman recited his poem "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free" (later "Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood") at the Dartmouth commencement on June 26, 1872. The poem was first published in the the June 26, 1872, issue of the New York Herald. It was then published with seven other poems in a pamphlet, also titled As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free (1872). It was later included as a supplement bound into Two Rivulets (1876). Later, Whitman changed the title to "Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood," added a new opening stanza, made additional revisions, and incorporated the poem into Leaves of Grass (1881–82). [back]
  • 17. 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]
  • 18. Whitman's "big book" is a reference to his Complete Poems and Prose of Walt Whitman (1888). Whitman published the book himself—in an arrangement with the Philadephia publisher David McKay, who allowed Whitman to use the plates for both Leaves of Grass and Specimen Days—in December 1888. [back]
  • 19. An unknown person, likely Whitman himself, has written what appear to be calculations for change, or some other sort of numerical transaction, on the verso of the envelope. The word "change" appears in the hand of the person who wrote the calculations. [back]
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