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James W. Wallace to Walt Whitman, 4 [March] 1892

 loc_vm.01999_large.jpg Dear Walt,

Love to you,2 and constant thoughts & sympathy & best wishes. God bless you.

your loving Wallace  loc_vm.02000_large.jpg  loc_vm.02001_large.jpg  loc_vm.02002_large.jpg

Correspondent:
James William Wallace (1853–1926), of Bolton, England, was an architect and great admirer of Whitman. Wallace, along with Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927), a physician in Bolton, 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 Wallace, see Larry D. Griffin, "Wallace, James William (1853–1926)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).


Notes

  • 1. According to Edwin Haviland Miller, Wallace has misdated this letter. The date is March 4, 1892, not February 4, 1892 (see Walt Whitman: The Correspondence 5 [New York: New York University Press, 1969], 348; Ted Genoways confirms the misdating in Walt Whitman: The Correspondence 7 [Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004], 186). [back]
  • 2. On December 17, 1891, Whitman had come down with a chill and was suffering from congestion in his right lung. Although the poet's condition did improve in January 1892, he would never recover. He was confined to his bed, and his physicians, Dr. Daniel Longaker of Philadelphia and Dr. Alexander McAlister of Camden, provided care during his final illness. Whitman died on March 26, 1892. [back]
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