loc_zs.00221.jpg
Camden Evn'g:1
Jan: 15 '91
Feeling fairly after two very bad days & nights—ate my supper
with relish—many visitors to-day—Herb:
Gil2: Stoddart3 &
five others—Arthur Stedman4 &c:
&c:—Horace T5 just here—the
March No. of Lip:6
will indeed be Whitmanesque—am sitting here writing by a little tallow
candle—clear but a storm preparing
WW
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Correspondent:
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).
Notes
- 1. This postal card is
addressed: Dr Bucke | Asylum | London | Ontario | Canada. It is postmarked: NY |
1-16-91 | 10 AM | 7; CAMDEN, N.J. | JAN 16 | 6 AM | 91. [back]
- 2. Herbert Gilchrist (1857–1914) was a painter
and the son of Anne Gilchrist. For more on him, see Marion Walker Alcaro, "Gilchrist, Herbert Harlakenden (1857–1914)". Gilchrist often visited
the Staffords when in New York. [back]
- 3. Joseph Marshall Stoddart
(1845–1921) published Stoddart's Encyclopaedia
America, established Stoddart's Review in 1880,
which was merged with The American in 1882, and became
the editor of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1886. On
January 11, 1882, Whitman received an
invitation from Stoddart through J. E. Wainer, one of his associates, to dine
with Oscar Wilde on January 14 (Clara Barrus, Whitman and
Burroughs—Comrades [Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931],
235n). [back]
- 4. Arthur Stedman (1859–1908)
was the son of the prominent critic, editor, and poet Edmund Clarence Stedman.
Arthur was an editor at Mark Twain's publishing house, Charles L. Webster, where
he edited a selection of Whitman's poems and a selection of his autobiographical
writings for the "Fiction, Fact, and Fancy Series" (1892). [back]
- 5. Horace Traubel founded The Conservator in March 1890, and he remained its editor
and publisher until his death in 1919. Traubel conceived of The Conservator as a liberal periodical influenced by Whitman's poetic
and political ethos. A fair portion of its contents were devoted to Whitman
appreciation and the conservation of the poet's literary and personal
reputation. [back]
- 6. In March 1891, Lippincott's Magazine published "Old Age Echoes," a cycle of four poems including "Sounds of the
Winter," "The Unexpress'd," "Sail Out for Good, Eidólon Yacht," and "After
the Argument," accompanied by an extensive autobiographical note called "Some
Personal and Old-Age Memoranda." Also appearing in that issue was a piece on
Whitman entitled, "Walt Whitman: Poet and Philosopher and Man" by Horace
Traubel. [back]