The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Walt Whitman to Dr. John Johnston, 8 May 1891
Date: May 8, 1891
Whitman Archive ID: loc.08040
Source: 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), 5:197. 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, Andrew David King, Breanna Himschoot, and Stephanie Blalock
Camden N J—U S America1
May 8 P M '91
Just a word any how & shaped the most favorable possible—Am still not dislodged but a bad three weeks & "the same subject continued"—with hope of sending you better acc'ts by & by. Am up & in the big chair writing this with love to all—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Dr. John Johnston (d. 1918) was a
physician from Bolton, England, who, with 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 (d.1918)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes:
1. This letter is addressed: Dr Johnston | 54 Manchester road | Bolton Lancashire | England. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | May 8 | 5 PM | 91. [back]