Camden1
April 11 '89
Splendid sunny perfect weather here—I sit with my window open—friendly notices
from Chicago2—Am busying myself with a special L
of G. ed'n3 (to be trimm'd close & bound pocket book style) to include Sands at
70 and "Backward Glance"—Am quite miserable from the join'd cold &
constipation ruling me now over a week—A good letter just from Dr B4—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
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).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed: Wm
D O'Connor | 1015 O Street N W | Washington D C. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J.
| Apr 11 | 8 PM | 89; Washington, Rec'd. | Apr 12 | 6 AM | 89 | 7. [back]
- 2. William M. Payne
forwarded on April 7, 1889 his review of November Boughs in the Chicago Evening
Journal of March 16 (Feinberg). [back]
- 3. Whitman had a limited
pocket-book edition of Leaves of Grass printed in honor
of his 70th birthday, on May 31, 1889, through special arrangement with
Frederick Oldach. Only 300 copies were printed, and Whitman signed the title
page of each one. The volume also included the annex Sands at
Seventy and his essay A Backward Glance O'er Traveled
Roads. See Whitman's May 16, 1889, letter
to Oldach. For more information on the book see Ed Folsom, Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman: A Catalog and
Commentary (University of Iowa: Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, 2005). [back]
- 4. 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). [back]