What1 you may need too perhaps is Dr Bucke's2 "Walt
Whitman" book, (life &c:) pub'd by D. McKay,3 Philad: 9th st:
opp: p. o. ($2)4—
Correspondent:
John Phillips Street
(1869–1938) earned a B.S. at Rutgers College in New Brunswick, New Jersey,
in 1889 and worked at the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station; he wrote
on agricultural science.
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
John Phillips Street | New Brunswick | New Jersey. It is postmarked: Camden [illegible] | Jul 14 | 4 30 PM | 91; New
Brunswick, N.J. | Jul | 16 | AM | 1891 | Rec'd. [back]
- 2. 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]
- 3. David McKay (1860–1918) took
over Philadelphia-based publisher Rees Welsh's bookselling and publishing
businesses in 1881–82. McKay and Rees Welsh published the 1881 edition of
Leaves of Grass after opposition from the Boston
District Attorney prompted James R. Osgood & Company of Boston, the original publisher,
to withdraw. McKay also went on to publish Specimen Days &
Collect, November Boughs, Gems
from Walt Whitman, Complete Prose Works,
and the final Leaves of Grass, the so-called deathbed edition. For
more information about McKay, see Joel Myerson, "McKay, David (1860–1918)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. This note was written on
an advertisement of Whitman's books. Street made the inquiry on July 13, and replied on July 16 that he was unable to purchase the volume. [back]