Camden
April 25 '89
Y'r card just rec'd1—papers come
regularly—thanks—Nothing very different with me—Still
imprison'd—my dilapidation not mending (slowly gradually worse if any thing,
but not much change)—am preparing my (to me) most satisfactory new really
complete ed'n L of G. including "Sands" and epilogue "Glance"2—will send you one—Am sitting here in the big
chair sort o' comfortable—alone all day—O'C[onnor]3
still very sick—Dr B[ucke]4 well & busy—
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
William Sloane Kennedy
(1850–1929) was on the staff of the Philadelphia American and the Boston Transcript; he also
published biographies of Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier (Dictionary of American Biography [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933], 336–337). Apparently Kennedy called on
the poet for the first time on November 21, 1880 (William Sloane Kennedy, Reminiscences of Walt Whitman [London: Alexander
Gardener, 1896], 1). Though Kennedy was to become a fierce defender of Whitman,
in his first published article he admitted reservations about the "coarse
indecencies of language" and protested that Whitman's ideal of democracy was
"too coarse and crude"; see The Californian, 3 (February
1881), 149–158. For more about Kennedy, see Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. On April 25, 1889, Kennedy wrote: "Your Homeric lines
on the dandelion ["The First Dandelion"] . . . are as immortal as those of Robert Burns
or William Wordsworth on the daisy." [back]
- 2. Whitman had a special
pocket-book edition printed in honor of his 70th birthday, 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]
- 3. 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]
- 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]