I remain anchor'd here in my big chair—Have you read the Bacon-Shakspere résumé in the last Sunday's N. Y. World?1 I am tackling it—take less & less stock in it.
Correspondent:
This letter is addressed to three
close acquaintances of Whitman: William Sloane Kennedy (1850–1929), the
naturalist John Burroughs (1837–1921), and the Canadian physician Richard
Maurice Bucke (1837–1902). For more on these figures, see these entries
from Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998): Katherine Reagan, "Kennedy, William Sloane (1850–1929)," Carmine Sarracino, "Burroughs, John (1837–1921) and Ursula (1836–1917)," and
Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice (1837–1902).