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54 Manchester Road
Bolton, Lancs.1
Sept 30th '91
My Dear Old Friend,
Again have I to acknowledge the receipt of a most welcome
missive from you—this time in
the shape of a letter written2 on the margin of the "Title & backing
p.p. of the forthcoming &
really last & complete ed'n of L. of G.3
with portrait of "Rollins, the best Catcher in the State."4 For all
of which I thank you
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most cordially.
Glad indeed am I to know that you continue better—"all goes doubtless
as fairly as could be expected with me" you say—& that you had been
"out just a little in wheel'd chair."5
Long may this improvement continue & increase!
J.W.W.6 seems to be
having a good time7—quiet & unexciting, wh. is best for him for
as you truly say "he has excitement enough in himself." I hope he is
taking your advice to "tie up," & "lie fallow"
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Dr Bucke 8 has written to Costello9 re "clayhead"10
but I have heard nothing more about it yet. I do hope it can be got for us!
What a treasure it will be!
I am sending copies of my "notes"11 to Professor Brinton12
& to Mr Harned13 at the request of H.L.T14 through J.W.W
Pardon this brief letter—I am just called out to a lady who requires
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my services. May she have a good time & good luck to the coming stranger!
My love to you & to HLT & his winsome wife15 now & ever
Yours affectly
J Johnston
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Correspondent:
Dr. John Johnston (1852–1927)
of Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, was a physician, photographer, and avid
cyclist. Johnston was trained in Edinburgh and served as a hospital surgeon in
West Bromwich for two years before moving to Bolton, England, in 1876. Johnston
worked as a general practitioner in Bolton and as an instructor of ambulance
classes for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways. He served at Whalley Military
Hospital during World War I and became Medical Superintendent of Townley's
Hospital in 1917 (John Anson, "Bolton's Illustrious Doctor Johnston—a man
of many talents," Bolton News [March 28, 2021]; Paul
Salveson, Moorlands, Memories, and Reflections: A Centenary
Celebration of Allen Clarke's Moorlands and Memories [Lancashire
Loominary, 2020]). Johnston, along with the architect James W. Wallace, 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
Johnston, see Larry D. Griffin, "Johnston, Dr. John (1852–1927)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Walt Whitman | 328, Mickle St. | Camden, | New Jersey, | U.
S. America. It is postmarked: Bolton | 56 | SP 30 | 91; New York | Oct
| [illegible] | Paid | [illegible] | Camden, N. J. | Oct 10 |
6AM | 91 | Rec'd. Johnston has written his initials, "J.J," in the bottom left
corner of the front of the envelope. [back]
- 2. It is uncertain which letter is
being referred to here. [back]
- 3. The 1891–1892 Leaves of Grass was copyrighted in 1891 and published by
Phildelphia publisher David McKay in 1892. This volume, often referred to as the
"deathbed" edition, reprints, with minor revisions, the 1881 text from the
plates of Boston publisher James R. Osgood. Whitman also includes his two
annexes in the book. The first annex, called "Sands at Seventy," consisted of
sixty-five poems that had originally appeared in November
Boughs (1888); while the second, "Good-Bye my Fancy," was a collection
of thirty-one short poems taken from the gathering of prose and poetry published
under that title by McKay in 1891, along with a prose "Preface Note to 2d
Annex." Whitman concluded the 1891–92 volume with his prose essay "A
Backward Glance o'er Travel'd Roads," which had originally appeared in November Boughs. For more information on this volume of
Leaves, see R.W. French, "Leaves of Grass, 1891–1892, Deathbed
Edition," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed.
J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing,
1998). [back]
- 4. As yet, we have no
information about "Rollins, the best Catcher in the State," but it seems that
Whitman has sent Johnston a photo of a baseball player. [back]
- 5. Horace Traubel and Ed
Wilkins, Whitman's nurse, went to Philadelphia to purchase a wheeled chair for
the poet that would allow him to be "pull'd or push'd" outdoors. See Whitman's
letter to William Sloane Kennedy of May 8,
1889. [back]
- 6. 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]
- 7. In September 1891, Wallace
traveled to the United States, arriving at Philadelphia on September 8, 1891
(Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, September 8, 1891). Wallace's arrival was shortly preceded
by that of the Canadian physician Richard Maurice Bucke, who had recently
returned from two months of travel in Europe, where he had spent time with
Johnston, Wallace, and the Bolton College group of English Whitman admirers.
Both Bucke and Wallace visited Whitman in Camden, and, after spending a few days
with the poet, Wallace returned with Bucke to London, Ontario, Canada, where he
met Bucke's family and friends. Wallace's account of his time with Whitman was
published—along with the Bolton physician John Johnston's account of his
own visit with the poet in the summer of 1890—in their memoir, Visits to Walt Whitman in 1890–1891 by Two Lancashire
Friends (London: Allen and Unwin, 1917). [back]
- 8. 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]
- 9. Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe
(1864–1945) was a political activist, art historian, and critic, whom
Whitman once called his "staunchest living woman friend." For more information
about Costelloe, see Christina Davey, "Costelloe, Mary Whitall Smith (1864–1945)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 10. [back]
- 11. Johnston published (for
private circulation) Notes of Visit to Walt Whitman, etc., in
July, 1890. (Bolton: T. Brimelow & co., printers, &c.) in 1890.
His notes were also published, along with a series of original photographs, as
Diary Notes of A Visit to Walt Whitman and Some of His
Friends, in 1890 (Manchester: The Labour Press Limited; London: The
"Clarion" Office, 1898). Johnston's work was later published with James W.
Wallace's accounts of Fall 1891 visits with Whitman and the Canadian physician
Richard Maurice Bucke in Visits to Walt Whitman in
1890–91 (London, England: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd.,
1917). [back]
- 12. Daniel Garrison Brinton
(1837–1899) was a surgeon in the Union Army during the American Civil War
and then practiced medicine in Pennsylvania. He went on to become a professor at
the Academy of Natural Sciences, where he taught archaelogy and ethnology, and,
later, he worked as a professor of linguistics and archaeology at the University
of Pennsylvania. Whitman admired Brinton, who would speak at the poet's
funeral. [back]
- 13. Thomas Biggs Harned
(1851–1921) was a lawyer in Philadelphia and, later, one of Whitman's
literary executors. His wife, Augusta Anna Traubel Harned (1856–1914), was
Horace Traubel's sister. [back]
- 14. 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]
- 15. Anne Montgomerie
(1864–1954) married Horace Traubel in Whitman's Mickle Street house in
Camden, New Jersey, in 1891. They had one daughter, Gertrude (1892–1983),
and one son, Wallace (1893–1898). Anne was unimpressed with Whitman's work
when she first read it, but later became enraptured by what she called its
"pulsating, illumined life," and she joined Horace as associate editor of his
Whitman-inspired periodical The Conservator. Anne edited
a small collection of Whitman's writings, A Little Book of
Nature Thoughts (Portland, Maine: Thomas B. Mosher, 1896). After
Horace's death, both Anne and Gertrude edited his manuscripts of his
conversations with Whitman during the final four years of the poet's life, which
eventually became the nine-volume With Walt Whitman in
Camden. [back]