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Camden1—
Oct: 27 '91
J W W2 has just ret'd f'm a good (two days) visit to the
Staffords3 (& Timber Creek)—all well.
O'Connor's4 "Three Tales"5 is
out—I am down with a bad spell sort of general congestion—
Walt Whitman
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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:
Camden, N.J. | Oct 27 | 6 PM | 91; London | PM | OC 28 | 91 | Canada. [back]
- 2. 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]
- 3. Susan (1833–1910) and
George Stafford (1827–1892) were the parents of Whitman's young friend,
Harry Stafford. Whitman often visited the family at their farm at Timber Creek
in Laurel Springs (near Glendale), New Jersey, and was sometimes accompanied by
Herbert Gilchrist; in the 1880s, the Staffords sold the farm and moved to nearby
Glendale. For more, see David G. Miller, "Stafford, George and Susan M.," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. Three of O'Connor's
stories with a preface by Whitman were published in Three
Tales: The Ghost, The Brazen Android, The Carpenter (Boston and New
York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1892). The preface was included in Good-Bye My Fancy (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1891),
51–53. [back]