Life & Letters

Correspondence

About this Item

Title: Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 3 September 1891

Date: September 3, 1891

Whitman Archive ID: loc.08169

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.

Contributors to digital file: Cristin Noonan, Zainab Saleh, Stephanie Blalock, and Brandon James O'Neil



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N.Y.1
3 Sept. '91

I expect to see you early tomorrow (Friday) afternoon2


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 postal card is addressed: Walt Whitman | 328 Mickle Street | Camden—New Jersey. It is postmarked: New York | Sep 3 | 1130 PM | P; 91; Camden, N. J. | [illegible] | [illegible] | 6am | [illegible] | Rec'd. [back]

2. At this time, Bucke was arriving in New York, following two months in England, where he had attempted to establish a foreign market for the gas and fluid meter he was developing with his brother-in-law William Gurd. As this postal card indicates, he would then travel to Camden, New Jersey, to visit Whitman. [back]


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