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Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 27 October 1891

About This Item

  • Title: Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 27 October 1891
  • Date: October 27, 1891
  • Creator(s): Richard Maurice Bucke
  • Whitman Archive ID: loc.08179
  • 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 Breanna Himschoot Amanda J. Axley
  • Cite this page: Bucke, Richard Maurice. "Richard Maurice Bucke to Walt Whitman, 27 October 1891." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 03 May 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: loc.08179.xml (TEI)
 loc_zs.00400.jpg see notes Nov. 14 1891 Medical Superintendent's Office. INSANE ASYLUM LONDON ONTARIO 27 Oct 1891

Yours of 24th1 to hand and welcomed. Seems to me, dear old friend, that you hold your own pretty well tho' I realize that you are far from well and have (mostly) a bad time. Have just received from England "Francis Bacon2 Poet, Prophet, Philosopher VS. Phantom Capt. Wm Shakespeare" by W.F.C. Wigston3—Have not had a chance to look much into this book yet but it looks interesting. In a preface he quotes a letter f'm Donnelly4 as follows: "I am still at work, in all leisure moments, upon the Cipher, and am working out the complete and perfect story, and hope to publish something before long that will settle the controversity." I am quite full of this B.S. business and would like to give a little time to it but that same time is a mighty scarce article with me at present. We are all well here—Mrs B.5 has had a bad cold but is better again—I guess Horace6 considers you well as he has about quit writing—I do not hear much from Wallace7 either—Weather here beginning to look and feel wintry—I like it.

Best 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. See Whitman's letter of October 24, 1891. [back]
  • 2. Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was an English philosopher, scientist, statesman, and author. Bacon's personal notebooks and works came under scrutiny during the nineteenth-century because of suspicions that he had written plays under the pen-name William Shakespeare in order to protect his political office from material some might find objectionable. For more on the Baconian theory, see Henry William Smith, Was Lord Bacon The Author of Shakespeare's Plays?: A Letter to Lord Ellesmere (London: William Skeffington, 1856). [back]
  • 3. William Francis C. Wigston was the author of Francis Bacon, Poet, Prophet, Philosopher, Versus Phantam Captain Shakespeare The Rosicrucian Mask (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1891). Wigston was a proponent of the Baconian theory. [back]
  • 4. Ignatius Loyola Donnelly (1831–1901) was a politician and writer, well known for his notions of Atlantis as an antediluvian civilization and for his belief that Shakespeare's plays had been written by Francis Bacon, an idea he argued in his book The Great Cryptogram: Francis Bacon's Cipher in Shakespeare's Plays, published in 1888. [back]
  • 5. Jessie Maria Gurd Bucke (1839–1926) grew up in Mooretown, Upper Canada. She was the daughter of William Gurd, an army officer from Ireland. Gurd married Richard Maurice Bucke in 1865. The couple had eight children. [back]
  • 6. Horace L. Traubel (1858–1919) was an American essayist, poet, and magazine publisher. He is best remembered as the literary executor, biographer, and self-fashioned "spirit child" of Walt Whitman. During the late 1880s and until Whitman's death in 1892, Traubel visited the poet virtually every day and took thorough notes of their conversations, which he later transcribed and published in three large volumes entitled With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906, 1908, & 1914). After his death, Traubel left behind enough manuscripts for six more volumes of the series, the final two of which were published in 1996. For more on Traubel, see Ed Folsom, "Traubel, Horace L. [1858–1919]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
  • 7. James William Wallace (1853–1926), of Bolton, England, was an architect and great admirer of Whitman. Wallace, along with Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927), a physician in Bolton, 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 Wallace, see Larry D. Griffin, "Wallace, James William (1853–1926)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
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