loc_vm.02186.jpg
Anderton, near Chorley
Lancashire, England.
15. Oct.br 1890
Dear Walt Whitman,
Your kind post-card of Sept. 30th1
recd on the 11th inst, and
the pocket-book copy of
L. of G.2 received this morning. Many thanks.
I am glad to hear of the visit from John Burroughs,3 which I know
would be a very great pleasure to you both. He told Dr
J.4 that he wished very much that he could persuade you to
live near him.
loc_vm.02187.jpg
Dr Johnston tells me that a friend of ours, & a
school-fellow of mine,—Fred Wild5—is likely to call upon you. He has been
spending a little time in Canada, & wrote home that he would return by New York,
& would probably go on to Camden to see you. Dr J. sent you
a telegram to that effect last week. I understand, however, that he is likely to
have left America before this reaches you. loc_vm.02188.jpg I spent 3 days in Yorkshire last
week—so ending my holiday.—I am by no means so much
recruited in health as I
expected, but hope to improve gradually as time goes on.
The weather here is broken—two or three days of fair weather alternating with a
few days of rain. Fairly warm so far, getting colder at nights.
Looking through some old papers the other day I came across a cutting from the "Sunday Chronicle" loc_vm.02189.jpg dated Feb 27th
1887. Probably you have not seen it, and I think I will enclose it. It is of very
slight value but is interesting because of its source—the S. C. having a large
circulation amongst the working classes here & being very radical & heterodox in
character.—It pays you the left-handed compliment of professing to employ a
"Walt Whitman Junior" on its staff, whose verses often appear but do no credit to
the name!
Dr Johnston seems in good health now & very busy.
I hope that the "grippe" has now left you, &, with love & best wishes always,
remain
Yours affectionately
J. W. Wallace
Correspondent:
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).
Notes
- 1. See Whitman's postcard to
Wallace of September 30, 1890. [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. The naturalist John Burroughs
(1837–1921) met Whitman on the streets of Washington, D.C., in 1864. After
returning to Brooklyn in 1864, Whitman commenced what was to become a decades-long
correspondence with Burroughs. Burroughs was magnetically drawn to Whitman.
However, the correspondence between the two men is, as Burroughs acknowledged,
curiously "matter-of-fact." Burroughs would write several books involving or
devoted to Whitman's work: Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and
Person (1867), Birds and Poets (1877), Whitman, A Study (1896), and Accepting
the Universe (1924). For more on Whitman's relationship with Burroughs,
see Carmine Sarracino, "Burroughs, John [1837–1921] and Ursula [1836–1917]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 4. 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). [back]
- 5. Fred Wild (d. 1935), a
cotton waste merchant, was a member of the "Bolton College" of Whitman admirers
and was also affiliated with the Labour Church, an organization whose socialist
politics and working-class ideals were often informed by Whitman's work. A
painter and scholar of Shakespeare, he was also a lively debater. With James W.
Wallace and Dr. John Johnston, Wild formed the nucleus of the Bolton Whitman
group. For more on Wild and Whitman's Bolton disciples, see Paul Salveson, "Loving Comrades:
Lancashire's Links to Walt Whitman,"
Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 14.2 (1996),
57–84. [back]