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Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 1 July 1891

About This Item

  • Title: Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 1 July 1891
  • Date: July 1, 1891
  • Creator(s): Richard Maurice Bucke
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.08160
  • Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.

    Notes for this letter were created by Whitman Archive staff and/or were derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented or updated by Whitman Archive staff.
  • Contributors to digital file: Cristin Noonan Zainab Saleh Stephanie Blalock Brandon James O'Neil
  • Cite this page: Bucke, Richard Maurice. "Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 1 July 1891." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 10 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.08160.xml (TEI)
 loc_zs.00520.jpg Medical Superintendent's Office. INSANE ASYLUM LONDON ONTARIO1 1 July 1891

I have the proof of the "Birthday" piece.2 It is immense. I like it wonderfully & feel sure it will do us a lot of good. Think it will be one of the most popular things yet and assist the study of W.W. & L. of G. greatly.

Beautiful day here and all well with us. Sunday I leave & Wednesday morning sail.3 Write me a line Monday, dear Walt, and address it. "White Star S.S. Brittanic N. Y.["] I will send you a word the last thing as I sail out to sea.

All looks well with meters4 and everything. I have heard from Eakins5—the picture is mine

Love R M Bucke  loc_zs.00521.jpg see notes July 3 1891  loc_zs.00522.jpg

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 letter is addressed: Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle Street | Camden | New Jersey | U.S.A. It is postmarked: LONDON | PM | JY 1 | 91 | CANADA; CAMDEN, N.J. | JUL | 3 | 1PM | 1891 | REC'D. [back]
  • 2. Bucke is referring to a proof of Horace Traubel's article "Walt Whitman's Birthday, May 31, 1891." The article was published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in August 1891. It was a detailed account of Whitman's seventy-second (and last) birthday, which was celebrated with friends at the poet's home on Mickle street. [back]
  • 3. As Bucke's letters in May and June 1891 both to Whitman and Horace Traubel make clear, he was going abroad to establish a foreign market for his gas and fluid meter, a subject to which he referred constantly in his communications but which the poet studiously ignored. [back]
  • 4. Bucke and his brother-in-law William John Gurd were designing a gas and fluid meter to be patented in Canada and sold in England. [back]
  • 5. Thomas Eakins (1844–1919) was an American painter. His relationship with Whitman was characterized by deep mutual respect, and he soon became a close friend of the poet. For more on Eakins, see Philip W. Leon, "Eakins, Thomas (1844–1916)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
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