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Camden—Evn'g1
Oct: 14 '91
Feeling tolerable considering—Wallace2
& Andrew Rome3 come on here
tomorrow—W is visiting4 & seeing
& chatting & enjoying NY & Brooklyn—I have had an
offer to publish all my works for Gt Britain5 (& English–reading
Europe)—seems to be solid—may want Harry Forman's6
offices over there
Walt Whitman
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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. |
OCT14 | 6 PM | 91, London | PM | OC 16 | Canada. [back]
- 2. 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]
- 3. Andrew Rome, perhaps with
the assistance of his brother Tom, printed Whitman's first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855) in a small shop at the
intersection of Fulton and Cranberry in Brooklyn. It was likely the first book
the firm ever printed. [back]
- 4. Wallace traveled from
Bolton, England to the United States, arriving at Philadelphia on September 8,
1891 (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Tuesday, September 8, 1891). At the time of Whitman's letter, Wallace
had just returned to the United States after visiting Bucke in Canada. 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]
- 5. In a letter to Richard
Maurice Bucke dated November 22, 1891, Whitman
explained that "[William] Heineman, [Wolcott] Balestier, & [John] Lovell
want to purchase the American copyright [to Leaves of Grass]—I do not care
to sell it as at present minded." See also Harry Buxton Forman's letter to
Whitman of November 8, 1891. [back]
- 6. 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. [back]