Four letters of the 18th and 19th2 of October reached me together as you intended. You may be sure, dear Walt Whitman, that the moment I had them I wrote to Mr. Balestier3 to make an appointment. He replied promptly that what he was really after was the American copyright—only in a minor loc.02105.002_large.jpg degree the Continental, and not the English at all, which in his opinion does not exist. He said he would appoint a meeting very shortly; & I am daily expecting to hear again. My own impression is that if you revised your works finally in few or many details, and the revision was first published here, the new readings would have English copyright—which a publisher could defend, and so maintain the position of publishing the only loc.02105.003_large.jpg finally correct edition. Anything that I can do to forward your views will be a pleasure to me, be sure; but I expect to get no further with Mr. Balestier than to ascertain just what is the scope and end of his present approach to you. The moment I can see what he is driving at I will write to you again. About American copyright, of course, I have absolutely no instructions from you.
The above I have written 24 hours after receipt of your letter loc.02105.004_large.jpg of the 29th of October,4 with the enclosure which is too precious to name. Could I have caught the Cunarder-mail of this morning from Queenstown, I should have written yesterday, if only to send my love and thanks for the delicate kindness you have done me. Your intuitive knowledge of men is wonderful: I do not know anything you could have sent that would have touched me as your latest gift has done. But how did you know that, dear Walt Whitman?
H. Buxton Forman loc.02105.005_large.jpg N. Nov. 21 1891 loc.02105.006_large.jpgCorrespondent:
Henry Buxton Forman (1842–1917), also known as
Harry Buxton Forman, was most notably the biographer and editor of Percy Shelley
and John Keats. On February 21, 1872, Buxton sent
a copy of R. H. Horne's The Great Peace-Maker: A Sub-marine
Dialogue (London, 1872) to Whitman. This poetic account of the laying
of the Atlantic cable has a foreword written by Forman. After his death,
Forman's reputation declined primarily because, in 1934, booksellers Graham
Pollard and John Carter published An Enquiry into the Nature
of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets, which exposed Forman as a
forger of many first "private" editions of poetry.