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Camden1
Aug: 22 '90
Mr & Mrs: Ingram2 here yesterday f'm their journey back
safe & full of glowing acc'ts of their visit to you & the
Asylum3—No news yet ab't Dr:
Johnston4 & I shall be uneasy until I hear—All well as
usual with me—hot weather—light eating—frequent bathing—the
bladder botheration my worst trouble—sent off a
big parcel of books to Logan Smith5 & Edw'd
Carpenter6 yesterday7—
Love to you and all—
W W
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Correspondent:
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).
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed: Dr Bucke |
Asylum | London | Ontario | Canada. It is postmarked: Camden, N.J. | Aug 21 | 6
PM | 90; London | PM | Au 23 | 9 | Canada. [back]
- 2. John Henry Ingram
(1842–1916), an English editor, collector, and biographer, wrote several
memoirs about Edgar Allan Poe, largely in opposition to a Poe memoir written in
1850 by Rufus W. Griswold, which Ingram deemed inaccurate and filled with lies.
Ingram also wrote critical studies of Thomas Chatterton and Christopher Marlowe.
For more on Ingram, see John Carl Miller, "John Henry Ingram: Editor,
Biographer, and Collector of Poe Materials," in A Guide to
John Henry Ingram's Poe Collection at the University of Virginia,
Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
(2015). [back]
- 3. Bucke commented on August 17, 1890: "Mr & Mrs Ingram are still
here—they will go I believe tomorrow—we all like them well and have
enjoyed their visit with us." [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. Logan Pearsall Smith
(1865–1946) was an essayist and literary critic. He was the son of Robert
Pearsall Smith, a minister and writer who befriended Whitman, and he was the
brother of Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, one of Whitman's most avid followers.
For more information on Logan, see Christina Davey, "Smith, Logan Pearsall (1865–1946)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 6. Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) was an English
writer and Whitman disciple. Like many other young disillusioned Englishmen, he
deemed Whitman a prophetic spokesman of an ideal state cemented in the bonds of
brotherhood. Carpenter—a socialist philosopher who in his book Civilisation, Its Cause and Cure posited civilization as
a "disease" with a lifespan of approximately one thousand years before human
society cured itself—became an advocate for same-sex love and a
contributing early founder of Britain's Labour Party. On July 12, 1874, he wrote for the first time to Whitman: "Because you
have, as it were, given me a ground for the love of men I thank you continually
in my heart . . . . For you have made men to be not ashamed of the noblest
instinct of their nature." For further discussion of Carpenter, see Arnie
Kantrowitz, "Carpenter, Edward [1844–1929]," Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 7. Whitman sent two copies
of Complete Poems & Prose to Carpenter on August 19,
1890 (Whitman's Commonplace Book, Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers
of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). For
the books shipped to Logan Pearsall Smith, see Whitman's letter to Smith of August 12, [1890]. [back]