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Harry Buxton Forman to Walt Whitman, 26 November 1891

About This Item

  • Title: Harry Buxton Forman to Walt Whitman, 26 November 1891
  • Date: November 26, 1891
  • Creator(s): Harry Buxton Forman
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.02106
  • 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: Cristin Noonan Amanda J. Axley Stephanie Blalock
  • Cite this page: Forman, Harry Buxton. "Harry Buxton Forman to Walt Whitman, 26 November 1891." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 11 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.02106.xml (TEI)
 loc.02106.001_large.jpg
London 26 Nov. 18911

Not a word from Balestier2 since I wrote to you3 a week or two since, dear Walt Whitman. So last night I wrote to stir him up, having got instructions from the Postmaster General to start at once, on business, to Paris & Rome. I shall be away two or three weeks. I hoped to have seen him before I went; but you will see how matters stand from the reply of his Secretary overleaf. I don't think it's of much use to see either Heinemann4 or Waugh;5 so I conclude to put it off till I return, in hopes that Balestier may be all right again by then. I have fair news of you from Traubel.6 Excuse brevity & haste.7

With affectionate respect H. Buxton Forman  loc.02106.002_large.jpg  loc.02106.003_large.jpg

I have8 no instructions for this; but expect to get useful information, at last, from B.—tho not from H. or W.

HBF  loc.02106.004_large.jpg  loc.02106.005_large.jpg  loc.02106.006_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 letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle Street | Camden | New Jersey | United States of America. It is posmarked: LONDON, B.C. | 3 | NO27 | 91 | D; NEW YORK | DEC | 6; PAID | P | ALL; 91; CAMDEN, N.J. | DEC 7 | 6AM | 91 | REC'D. [back]
  • 2. Wolcott Balestier (1861–1891) was an American writer who went to London, England, in 1888 as an agent for the publisher John W. Lovell. He became close friends with Henry James and Rudyard Kipling, who married Balestier's sister. Balestier joined with William Heinemann to form a publishing house in 1890, located in Leipzig, Germany, and dedicated to publishing continental editions of English writers. They launched their series, "The English Library," in 1891. Balestier died in December 1891 of typhoid fever in Dresden; he was a week away from his thirtieth birthday. [back]
  • 3. Here Forman reports on a lack of response from Wolcott Balestier as relating to his initial interest regarding the American copyright of Whitman's completed Leaves of Grass, of which Forman had waited for instructions upon. See Forman's November 8, 1891 letter to Whitman and Whitman's October 18, 1891 letter to Forman. [back]
  • 4. William Heinemann (1863–1920) was an English publisher of Jewish heritage who published the series, "The English Library," with Wolcott Balestier (1861–1891) and founded the Heinemann publishing house in London. [back]
  • 5. Arthur Waugh (1866–1943) was an English publisher and biographer. He wrote the first biography of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as well as a short biography of the Victorian poet Robert Browning. Waugh was the father of the British novelists Alec Waugh and Evelyn Waugh. [back]
  • 6. 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]
  • 7. With this letter, Forman enclosed a November 26, 1891, letter he had received from Arthur Waugh. [back]
  • 8. Forman writes this postscript in the left margin of Arthur Waugh's letter. [back]
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