The Walt Whitman Archive
Life & Letters
Correspondence
About this Item
Title: Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 1 July 1891
Date: July 1, 1891
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 derived from Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Edwin Haviland Miller, 6 vols. (New York: New York University Press, 1961–1977), and supplemented, updated, or created by Whitman Archive staff as appropriate.
Editorial note: The annotation, "see notes July 3 1891," is in the hand of Horace Traubel.
Contributors to digital file: Cristin Noonan, Zainab Saleh, Stephanie Blalock, and Brandon James O'Neil
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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
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]