Calamus. A Series Of Letters Written During The Years 1868-1880. By Walt Whitman To A Young Friend (Peter Doyle). Edited With An Introduction By Richard Maurice Bucke M.D. One Of Whitman's Literary Executors

Boston: Published By Laurens Maynard At 287 Congress Street, 1897. First (trade) edition, first issue, following a limited edition of 35 large-paper copies, signed by Dr. Bucke, of which 25 were for sale. Myerson A14.1.b1. In addition to the letters by Whitman, who died in 1892, this book contains a very interesting interview with Peter Doyle, conducted by Bucke and Horace Traubel in 1895, in which "Mr. Doyle is reported almost absolutely in his own words." Presentation copy, inscribed at the top of the front free endpaper: "Patrick Dougherty With the regards of Pete Doyle". Walt Whitman's relationship with Peter Doyle was the deepest and the longest of his erotic-romantic relationships with younger men, the only such long-term relationship that Whitman ever enjoyed. It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of their relationship in either man's life. They met in 1865 and within a couple of years, Whitman's friends (e.g. William Douglas O'Connor) began to comment on how powerfully "changed" and "inspired" the poet was by his feelings for Doyle. Serious students of Whitman have never questioned Doyle's pre-eminent place in his life. In the early 1990s, for instance, an entire issue of the Walt Whitman Quarterly was devoted to Doyle. Not surprisingly, the relationship with Doyle was also the best-documented of the poet's love affairs - in letters both from the participants and from others in their circle, in Whitman's notebooks, in numerous first-hand accounts of visits and conversations with Whitman published by admirers during and after his lifetime and in Calamus itself - which is, incidentally, the first published collection of letters by an American man to a male lover. Reviewing Calamus in the April 16, 1898 issue of Literature, Henry James found that although Whitman's letters contained "not even by accident a line with a hint of style - it is all flat, familiar, affectionate, illiterate colloquy," somehow "the record [of ordinary events of the friends shared lives] remains, by a mysterious marvel, a thing positively delightful." James declared Doyle's spoken account of his first meeting with Whitman on the horsecars "the most charming passage in the volume." Manuscript material by Doyle, even his signature, is extremely rare. Although it is clear from their extant correspondence that Doyle wrote at least as many letters to Whitman as he received, well over a hundred of Whitman's letters to Doyle have survived, but very few of Doyle's. Myerson notes that "some copies" of the first limited issue were signed by Peter Doyle as well as by Bucke. Only two locations, however, are recorded: the New York Public Library and the University of Texas at Austin, suggesting that Doyle's signatures in the two copies were the result of happenstance rather than editorial design. Dr. Bucke's copy, for instance, was not signed by Doyle; indeed, no copy of either the limited or trade editions of Calamus signed by Doyle are listed in Whitman At Auction 1899-1972 (Detroit: Gale Research, 1978), a compilation of the most significant sales of Whitman's work; nor has any other signed copy appeared at auction subsequently. Moreover, examination of all the published catalogues we have been able to locate of important private (and now institutionalized) Whitman collections - viz. those of Oscar Lion, Dr. & Mrs. Josiah Trent, Mrs. Frank Julian Sprague, and Charles E. Feinberg - has turned up no copies of a Calamus signed by Doyle, other than the two copies of the large-paper edition mentioned above. So far as we can determine, no other copy of Calamus inscribed by Doyle has ever appeared on the market. The usual discoloration of the illustrations and page margins, head of spine a trifle rubbed, otherwise a very good copy. Small 8vo, illustrated with a frontispiece & a facsimile, original yellow-green cloth with blind-stamped covers. The usual discoloration of the illustrations and page margins, head of spine a trifle rubbed, otherwise a very good copy.