The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to James W. Wallace, 29 May 1887
Date: May 29, 1887
Whitman Archive ID: loc.07192
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), 4:96. 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, Stefan Schöberlein, Kevin McMullen, and Stephanie Blalock
U.S. America, Camden New Jersey
328 Mickle St.1
May 29 '87
Your & Dr Johnston's2 letter & the pictures & birthday gift have safely reach'd me, & thank you indeed from my heart—I am ab't as usual in health—& a little (but not much) engaged in writing—Your letter is indeed comforting to one—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
James William Wallace
(1853–1926), of Bolton, England, was an architect and great admirer of
Whitman. Along with John Johnston (d. 1918), a physician from Bolton, he 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. This letter is addressed: J W Wallace | 14 Engle Street | Bolton England. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | May 2(?) | 3 PM | 87. [back]
2. John Johnston (d. 1918) was an English physician and co-founder of the "Bolton College." For more information on Johnston, see Larry D. Griffin, "Johnston, Dr. John (d.1918)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]