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PO order
enc'd [illegible]
London1
17 Oct. 1891
Your card of the 27th of September2 reached me along with the parcels of books. Thanks
many & hearty for your prompt attention to my requests, dear Walt Whitman. The big
Bible for my boy will "go home," I feel certain. Your inscription in it is beautiful;
and the lad will value the book more and more as
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he grows older. I should have judged from the vigour and firmness of the writing that
you had taken a start for the better; but I must not assume more than the
words of your card authorize,
"right arm, mentality, and fair
spirits." The Sculptor's profile3 for
"Goodbye my Fancy"4 is very impressive and grand.
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The parcels contained 1 Complete Works,5 2 "Good-Bye my Fancy,"6 1 "As a Strong Bird,"7
1 Burroughs,8 1 "Democratic Vistas,"9 & 1 "Gras-halme."10 You say more to follow,
"especially new issue of Leaves"11: of this last I am very glad, & hope you will
write in it for me; but I think that will use up the money I sent, in all probability;
so I send some more. What I wanted "Democratic
Vistas," "As a Strong Bird," "Passage to India,"12 & "After All"13 for
was to have inscribed
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copies from you. If you conclude to indulge me you can still send them against
the present remittance; and I should like, besides, the cloth covered &
inscribed "Good-Bye," six more of the unbound copies like the 2 you sent. Then
I should be glad of another lot of "Portraits Well-Enveloped"14 such as I had
a year or so ago, and one or two spare "sculptor's profiles." Bucke15
says you like doing these little business matters &
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hearing direct from us now & again. But if I worry you with my minutiae
you need not take any notice of me.
Next parcel might contain with advantage one or two facsimiles of your birthday
bulletin16 to Dr. Johnston17; and finally, if you advise me of dispatch,
will you
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this time do so on one of the yellow bits of paper (enclosed) instead of a card?
Not that I object to cards, but (as you will suspect) because I want a
note from you on the yellow sheet.
I am providing the next generation with lots of beautiful relics of you. My
collection of them is a great pleasure
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to me, and when I "go under" some other fellow or fellows will have the
advantage of them.
Yours with affectionate respect
H. Buxton Forman
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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: ST. JOHNS WOOD | A 1 | OC20 | 91 | N.W; B; NEW YORK |
OCT | 28; G | 91; PAID | H | ALL; CAMDEN, N.J. | OCT 29 | 6 A.M. | 91 |
REC'D. [back]
- 2. See Whitman's letter to
Forman from September 27, 1891. [back]
- 3. The frontispiece for Good-Bye My Fancy is a striking profile photograph of
Whitman taken by Samuel Murray for use by the sculptor William O'Donovan.
Whitman called the photo "an artist's picture in the best sense." See Horace
Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Saturday, May 23, 1891. [back]
- 4. 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]
- 5. 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]
- 6. 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]
- 7. 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]
- 8. The naturalist John
Burroughs (1837–1921) met Walt Whitman on the streets of Washington, D.
C., in 1864. After returning to Brooklyn in 1864, Whitman commenced what was to
become a lifelong correspondence with Burroughs. Burroughs was magnetically
drawn to Whitman. However, the correspondence between the two men is, as
Burroughs acknowledged, curiously "matter-of-fact." Burroughs would write
several books involving or devoted to Whitman's work: Notes on
Walt Whitman, as Poet and Person (1867), Birds and
Poets (1877), Whitman, A Study (1896), and Accepting the Universe (1924). For more on Burroughs, see
Carmine Sarracino "Burroughs, John [1837–1921] and Ursula [1836–1917]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). It is uncertain which
of Burroughs's works that Forman is referring to here. [back]
- 9. 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]
- 10. Grashalme, the first book-length German translation of Whitman's
poetry, was published in 1889, translated by Thomas William Hazen Rolleston and
Karl Knortz. [back]
- 11. 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]
- 12. 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]
- 13. "After All, Not to Create Only," which Whitman
sometimes referred to as his "American Institute piece," was presented before
the American Institute on September 7, 1871. Roberts Brothers of Boston later
published it; Whitman had written to them about the poem on September 17, 1871. This was the only Whitman poem
published by the Roberts Brothers. The poem was later retitled "Song of the
Exposition" to capitalize upon the formal opening of the Philadelphia Exposition on May 10, 1876. Walt Whitman sent the poem to
various newspapers, among them the Herald and the Tribune. [back]
- 14. Whitman had been thinking of
printing a select group of photos on uniform cards and arranging them in a
handsome envelope or album; he even wrote up instructions to a printer
specifying a run of 200 copies, but the project was never completed. Forman here
is referring to a much smaller edition of six portraits in an envelope tied with
a ribbon, which appeared in 1889. [back]
- 15. 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]
- 16. Buxton Forman may be
referring here to Whitman's letter to Dr. John Johnston dated June 1, 1891, in which Whitman describes the events
of his birthday on May 31, 1891. [back]
- 17. Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927)
of Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, was a physician, photographer, and avid
cyclist. Johnston was trained in Edinburgh and served as a hospital surgeon in
West Bromwich for two years before moving to Bolton, England, in 1876. Johnston
worked as a general practitioner in Bolton and as an instructor of ambulance
classes for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways. He served at Whalley Military
Hospital during World War I and became Medical Superintendent of Townley's
Hospital in 1917 (John Anson, "Bolton's Illustrious Doctor Johnston—a man
of many talents," Bolton News [March 28, 2021]; Paul
Salveson, Moorlands, Memories, and Reflections: A Centenary
Celebration of Allen Clarke's Moorlands and Memories [Lancashire
Loominary, 2020]). Johnston, along with the architect James W. Wallace, founded
the "Bolton College" of English admirers of the poet. Johnston and Wallace
corresponded with Whitman and with Horace Traubel and other members of the
Whitman circle in the United States, and they separately visited the poet and
published memoirs of their trips in John Johnston and James William Wallace, Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–1891 by Two Lancashire
Friends (London: Allen and Unwin, 1917). For more information on
Johnston, see Larry D. Griffin, "Johnston, Dr. John (1852–1927)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]