среда, 28 июля 2010 г.
вторник, 6 июля 2010 г.
James (Grover) Thurber (1894-1961)
'"What was the matter with that one policeman? mother asked, after they had gone. "Grandfather shot him," I said. "What for?" she demanded. I told her he was a deserter. "Of all things!" said mother. "He was such a nice-looking young man."' (from 'The Night the Ghost Got In', in My Life and Hard Times, 1933)
James Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Charles L. Thurber, was a clerk and minor politician, who went through many periods of unemployment. Mary Thurber, his mother, was a strong-minded woman and a practical joker. Once she surprised her guests by explaining that she was kept in the attic because of her love for the postman. On another occasion she pretended to be a cripple and attended a faith healer's revival, jumping up suddenly and proclaiming herself cured. Thurber described her as "a born comedienne" and "one of the finest comic talents I think I've ever known." Thurber's father, who had dreams of being an actor or lawyer, was said to have been the basis of the typical small, slight man of Thurber's stories. Later Thurber portrayed his family in MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES (1933). "I suppose that the high-water mark of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, was the night the bed fell on my father," Thurber wrote in the book.
Thurber was partially blinded by a childhood accident Ц his brother William shot an arrow at him. When he was unable to participate in games and sports with other children, he developed a rich fantasy life, which found its outlet in his writings.
Thurber began writing at secondary school. Due to his poor eyesight, he did not serve in WW I, but studied between 1913 and 1918 at Ohio State University. He worked as a code clerk in Washington, DC, and at the US embassy in Paris. In the early 1920s he worked as a journalist for several newspapers. He also lived in Paris, writing for the Chicago Tribune.
In 1922 Thurber married Althea Adams. The marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce in 1935. In 1926 Thurber went to New York City, where he was a reporter for the Evening Post. Next year he joined Harold Ross's newly established The New Yorker, where he found his clear, concise prose style. "Everybody thinks he knows English," Ross said to Thurber, "but nobody does. I think it's because of the goddam women and schoolteachers." Later Thurber published his memoirs from this period under the title THE YEARS WITH ROSS (1959).
Thurber's first book, IS SEX NECESSARY?, appeared in 1929. It was jointly written with the fellow New Yorker staffer E.B. White. The book presented Thurber's drawings on the subject, and instantly established him as a true comic talent. Thurber made fun of European psychoanalysis, including Freud's work, and theorists who had been attempting to reduce sex to a scientifically understandable level. In 'The Nature of the American Male: A Study of Pedestalism' Thurber claimed that "in no other civilized nation are the biological aspects of love so distorted and transcended by emphasis upon its sacredness as they are in the United States of America." According to Thurber, baseball, prize-fighting, horse-racing, bicycling, and bowling have acted as substitutes for sex. The female developed and perfected the "Diversion Subterfuge" to put Man in his place. "Its first manifestation was fudge-making."
In the 1950s Thurber published modern fairy tales for children, THE 13 CLOCKS (1950) and THE WONDERFUL O (1957), which both were hugely successful. Thurber's children's tales display a cynical undercurrent, and show at times a great deal of bitterness. Truman Capote also worked at the New Yorker, but according to his reminiscences he was a general dogsbody, who helped Thurber to and from meetings, or escorted Thurber to his trysts with one of the magazine's secretaries. Thurber had already in 1933 left The New Yorker staff, but remained still its contributor. His eyesight became worse in the 1940s, and by the 1950s his blindness was nearly total. Thurber continued to compose stories in his head, and he played himself in 88 performances of the play A Thurber Carnival. He received a Litt.D. in 1950 from Kenyon College, one from Yale in 1953, and an L.H.D. (honorary) from Williams College in 1951.
Thurber was married twice, and had one daughter. In later years he lived with his wife Helen Wismer, a magazine editor, at West Cornwall, Connecticut. He suffered from alcoholism and depression, but Helen's devoted nursing enabled him to maintain his literary production. His drinking companions included the actor Humphrey Bogart, who read more widely than just the scripts. Bogart had Thurber's THE MIDDLE AGED MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE on his bookshelf and cartoon "Jolly Times" on the wall in his Hollywood home. In 1958 the editors of Punch magazine gave a luncheon in Thurber's honor. James Thurber died of a blood clot on the brain on November 2, 1961, in New York.
"One night nearly thirty years ago, in a legendary New York boîte de nuit et des arts called Tony's, I was taking part in a running literary gun fight that had begun with a derogatory or complimentary remark somebody made about something, when one of the participants, former Pinkerton man Dashiell Hammett, whose The Maltese Falcon had come out a couple of years before, suddenly startled us all by announcing that his writing had been influenced by Henry James's novel The Wings of the Dove. Nothing surprises me any more, but I couldn't have been more surprised than if Humphrey Bogart, another frequenter of that old salon of wassail and debate, had proclaimed that his acting bore deep impress of the histrionic art of Maude Adams." (from 'The Wings of Henry James', in Lanterns and Lances, 1961)
During his career Thurber experimented with many types of writing. He said that his ideas were influenced by the Mid-western atmosphere of Columbus, movies, and comic strips. Thurber's wry humor showed great sensitivity to human fears and follies. His observations had often a timeless, aphoristic quality. "Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead," he said in FABLES FOR OUR TIME (1940). His poor eyesight was several times the source of surrealistic misunderstandings, which found their way into his writings. "The kingdom of the partly blind is little like Oz, a little like Wonderland," he wrote. "Anything you can think of, and a lot you would never think of, can happen there." Thurber also was inspired by confusion with language as in the story 'The Black Magic of Barney Haller' (1935), where his handyman Haller's linguistic innovations startle him more than the thunder. "Humour is emotional chaos remembered in tranquillity," he once said. Thurber's misogynist theme of war between men and women has been criticized by his feminist readers.
Thurber's story 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' was taken up by psychologist. 'Walter Mitty Syndrome' was put forward in a British medical journal as a clinical condition, which manifested itself in compulsive fantasizing. The title character is a meek, mild-mannered husband, who escapes his everyday existence in heroic fantasies. "Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?" he says to Mrs. Mitty. "I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home," she says. The character inspired Danny Kaye's movie of 1947, in which Boris Karloff played Dr. Hugo Hollingshead, a psychiatrist.
THE MALE ANIMAL (1939), a satire of athlete worship, was written with Elliott Nugent, who featured in the 1940 Broadway play as a jealous college professor, whose wife is warming up to an old football star. The play co-starred Gene Tierney, Leon Ames, and Don DeFore. In the film adaption from 1942 Henry Fonda played the role. A musical version, produced by Warner Bros. and directed by H. Bruce Humberstone, was made in 1952, starring Ronald Reagan as the professor and Virginia Mayo as a stripper who aspires to become a writer. Thurber's short pieces have been adapted more than dozen times for TV.
In addition to his fame as writer, Thurber was a highly respected artist and cartoonist as well. His surreal, minimalist sketches were regular features of the New Yorker, where they became prototypes of the sophisticated cartoons. Thurber did not consider himself an artist, but his "non-mastery of line" has been compared to that of Matisse. Thurber was also a passionate letter writer. A collection of his letters, edited by Harrison Kinney and Rosemary A. Thurber, was published in 2003.
For further reading: James Thurber by R.E. Morsberger (1964); The Art of James Thurber by R.C. Tobias (1969); The Clocks of Columbus: The Literary Career of James Thurber by C.S. Holmes (1972); Thurber: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Charles S. Holmes (1974); Thurber: A Biography by Burton Bernstein (1975); Thurber's Anatomy of Confusion by C.M. Kenney (1984); Conversations with James Thurber, ed by Thomas Fensch (1989); Remember Laughter: A Life of James Thurber by Nell A. Grauer (1994); James Thurber: His Life and Times by Harrison Kinney (1995) 'Thurber, James' by John H. Rogers, in Encyclopedia of the Essay, ed. by Tracy Chevalier (1997); Conversations with James Thurber, ed. by Thomas Fensch (1998); The Man Who Was Walter Mitty: The Life and Work of James Thurber by Thomas Fensch (2001) - In Finnish: Suomeksi Thurberilta on julkaistu valikoima Miehiä, naisia, koiria (1965), toim. ja suom. Tuomas Anhava, Kristiina Kivivuori ja Pentti Saarikoski
Selected works:
- IS SEX NECESSARY?, 1929 (with E.B. White)
- THE OWL IN THE ATTIC AND OTHER PERPLEXITIES, 1931
- THE SEAL IN THE BEDROOM, 1932
- MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES, 1933
- THE MIDDLE AGED MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE, 1935
- LET YOUR MIND ALONE!, 1937
- THE LAST FLOWER, 1939
- THE MALE ANIMAL, 1939 (with Elliott Nugent) - films: 1942, dir. by Elliot Nugent, screenplay by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Stephen Morehouse Avery, starring Henry Fonda, Olivia De Havilland, Joan Leslie, Jack Carson, Hattie McDaniel; She's Working Her Way Through College, 1952, dir. by H. Bruce Humberstone, screenplay Peter Milne, starring Virginia Mayo, Ronald Reagan, Phyllis Thaxter, Gene Nelson, Don DeFore; TV drama 1958, dir. by Vincent Donohue, starring Andy Griffith, Ann Rutherford, Edmond O'Brien, Charles Ruggles
- FABLES FOR OUR TIME, 1940
- THE MALE ANIMAL, 1941 (with Elliott Nugent)
- MY WORLD - AND WELCOME TO IT, 1942 (includes the story 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty') - film 1947, dir. Norman Z. McLeod, story by James Thurber, starring Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Boris Karloff
- MEN, WOMEN, AND DOGS, 1943
- MANY MOONS, 1943
- THE WHITE DEER, 1945
- THE THURBER CARNIVAL, 1945
- THE BEAST IN ME AND OTHER ANIMALS, 1948
- THE 13 CLOCKS, 1950
- THE THURBER ALBUM, 1952
- THURBER COUNTRY, 1953
- THURBER DOGS, 1955
- A THURBER GARLAND, 1955
- FURTHER FABLES FOR OUR TIME, 1956
- THE WONDERFUL O, 1957
- ALARMS AND DIVERSIONS, 1957
- LIFE WITH ROSS / THE YEARS WITH ROSS, 1959
- LANTERNS AND LANCES, 1961
- CREDOS AND CURIOS, 1962
- VINTAGE THURBER, 1963 (2 vols.)
- THURBER AND COMPANY, 1966
- SELECTED LETTERS, 1981
- JAMES THURBER: WRITINGS AND DRAWINGS, 1996 (ed. by Garrison Keillor)
- THE THURBER LETTERS: THE WIT, WISDOM AND SURPRISING LIFE OF JAMES THURBER, 2003 (ed. by Harrison Kinney and Rosemary A. Thurber)
Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky was born on October 20, 1940 in Long Branch, New Jersey. He received a B.A. from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and earned both an M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Stanford University, where he was a Stegner Fellow in creative writing, and studied under the poet and critic Yvor Winters.
He is the author of several collections of poetry, most recently Gulf Music: Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 2007); Jersey Rain (2000); The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996 (1996), which received the 1997 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and was a Pulitzer Prize nominee; The Want Bone (1990); History of My Heart (1984); An Explanation of America (1980); and Sadness and Happiness (1975).
He is also the author of several prose titles, including The Life of David (Schocken, 2006); Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry (2002); The Sounds of Poetry (1998), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Poetry and the World (1988); and The Situation of Poetry(1977). In 1985 he also released a computerized novel, Mindwheel.
Pinsky has published two acclaimed works of traslation: The Inferno of Dante (1994), which was a Book-of-the-Month-Club Editor's Choice, and received both the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award; and The Separate Notebooks by Czeslaw Milosz (with Renata Gorczynski and Robert Hass).
About his work, the poet Louise Glück has said, "Robert Pinsky has what I think Shakespeare must have had: dexterity combined with worldliness, the magician's dazzling quickness fused with subtle intelligence, a taste for tasks and assignments to which he devises ingenious solutions."
From 1997 to 2000, he served as the United States Poet Laureate and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. During that time, he founded the Favorite Poem Project, a program dedicated to celebrating, documenting and encouraging poetry's role in Americans' lives.
In 1999, he co-edited Americans' Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology with Maggie Dietz. Other anthologies he has edited include An Invitation to Poetry (W. W. Norton & Company, 2004); Poems to Read (2002); and Handbook of Heartbreak (1998).
His honors include an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, both the William Carlos Williams Award and the Shelley Memorial prize from the Poetry Society of America, the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. He is currently poetry editor of the weekly Internet magazine Slate.
Pinsky has taught at both Wellesley College and the University of California, Berkeley, and currently teaches in the graduate writing program at Boston University. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/200понедельник, 5 июля 2010 г.
Walt Whitman
Born on May 31, 1819, Walt Whitman was the second son of Walter Whitman, a housebuilder, and Louisa Van Velsor. The family, which consisted of nine children, lived in Brooklyn and Long Island in the 1820s and 1830s.
At the age of twelve, Whitman began to learn the printer's trade, and fell in love with the written word. Largely self-taught, he read voraciously, becoming acquainted with the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible.
He founded a weekly newspaper, Long-Islander, and later edited a number of Brooklyn and New York papers. In 1848, Whitman left the Brooklyn Daily Eagle to become editor of the New Orleans Crescent. It was in New Orleans that he experienced at first hand the viciousness of slavery in the slave markets of that city. On his return to Brooklyn in the fall of 1848, he founded a "free soil" newspaper, the Brooklyn Freeman, and continued to develop the unique style of poetry that later so astonished Ralph Waldo Emerson.
In 1855, Whitman took out a copyright on the first edition of Leaves of Grass, which consisted of twelve untitled poems and a preface. He published the volume himself, and sent a copy to Emerson in July of 1855. Whitman released a second edition of the book in 1856, containing thirty-three poems, a letter from Emerson praising the first edition, and a long open letter by Whitman in response. During his subsequent career, Whitman continued to refine the volume, publishing several more editions of the book.At the outbreak of the Civil War, Whitman vowed to live a "purged" and "cleansed" life. He wrote freelance journalism and visited the wounded at New York-area hospitals. He then traveled to Washington, D.C. in December 1862 to care for his brother who had been wounded in the war.
Overcome by the suffering of the many wounded in Washington, Whitman decided to stay and work in the hospitals and stayed in the city for eleven years. He took a job as a clerk for the Department of the Interior, which ended when the Secretary of the Interior, James Harlan, discovered that Whitman was the author of Leaves of Grass, which Harlan found offensive. Harlan fired the poet.
Whitman struggled to support himself through most of his life. In Washington, he lived on a clerk's salary and modest royalties, and spent any excess money, including gifts from friends, to buy supplies for the patients he nursed. He had also been sending money to his widowed mother and an invalid brother. From time to time writers both in the states and in England sent him "purses" of money so that he could get by.
In the early 1870s, Whitman settled in Camden, NJ, where he had come to visit his dying mother at his brother's house. However, after suffering a stroke, Whitman found it impossible to return to Washington. He stayed with his brother until the 1882 publication of Leaves of Grass gave Whitman enough money to buy a home in Camden.
In the simple two-story clapboard house, Whitman spent his declining years working on additions and revisions to a new edition of the book and preparing his final volume of poems and prose, Good-Bye, My Fancy (1891). After his death on March 26, 1892, Whitman was buried in a tomb he designed and had built on a lot in Harleigh Cemetery.
A Selected Bibliography
Poetry
Drum Taps (1865)
Good-Bye, My Fancy (1891)
Leaves of Grass (1855)
Leaves of Grass (1856)
Leaves of Grass (1860)
Leaves of Grass (1867)
Leaves of Grass (1870)
Leaves of Grass (1876)
Leaves of Grass (1881)
Leaves of Grass (1891)
Passage to India (1870)
Sequel to Drum Taps (1865)
Prose
Democratic Vistas (1871)
Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate (1842)
Memoranda During the War (1875)
November Boughs (1888)
Specimen Days and Collect (1881)
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/126
Уолт Уитмен
Мать поэта была дочерью голландского скотовода Корнелия ван Вельзора, но все ее предки по отцовской и материнской линии были мореплавателями. Уитмен испытывал привязанность к доброй, отзывчивой матери, но самостоятельно мыслить его приучил, скорее всего, суровый раздражительный отец, друг просветителя-демократа и деиста Т.Пейна и почитатель социалистов-утопистов Р.Оуэна и Фрэнсис Райт.
Когда Уитмену было четыре года, родители переехали в Бруклин, ныне район Нью-Йорка. Здесь он шесть лет ходил в муниципальную школу, на чем и закончилось его формальное образование. Поработав рассыльным, поступил в ученики к наборщику. В типографии Уитмен получил первые представления о художественной прозе. С 16 лет и до 21 года работал печатником в Нью-Йорке, школьным учителем на Лонг-Айленде, основал и почти год издавал местный еженедельник «Лонг-Айлендер» в Хантингтоне и начал писать серию газетных очерков под названием Записки на закате из-за стола школьного учителя (Sun-Down Papers from the Desk of a Schoolmaster).
В мае 1841, расставшись с преподавательской деятельностью, Уитмен вернулся в Нью-Йорк, работал наборщиком в типографии, печатавшей «Нью уорлд». Завязал отношения с Таммани-холл, штаб-квартирой Демократической партии. Весной 1842 редактировал ежедневную газету «Аврора», однако трения с издателями привели к его увольнению. В течение еще четырех лет редактировал различные демократические газеты или сотрудничал в них.
В 1842 Уитмен серьезно взялся за литературную работу. Сентиментально-назидательные рассказы и стихи, не имевшие ничего общего с более поздними Листьями травы (Leaves of Grass), писались в угоду тогдашним вкусам и легко попадали в «Демократик ревью» и подобного рода издания. В 1842 он выпустил по заказу общества трезвенников роман Франклин Эванс, или Горький пьяница (Franklin Evans, or the Inebriate), о котором впоследствии не любил вспоминать. Проработав несколько месяцев в «Лонг-Айленд стар», Уитмен начал редактировать «Бруклин игл», одну из лучших тогда ежедневных газет столицы. В своих передовицах поддерживал Американо-мексиканскую войну и присоединение западных территорий. Мнения демократов из Северных штатов относительно того, будут новые земли отданы рабовладельцам или простым фермерам, разделились. Уитмен яростно поддерживал сторонников «свободной земли», выступавших за бесплатное наделение землей фермеров, и когда фракция Демократической партии, поддерживавшая демократов из южных штатов, взяла верх в штате Нью-Йорк, Уитмену пришлось в январе 1848 покинуть пост редактора «Бруклин игл». Буквально через несколько дней ему предложили редактировать только что основанную в Новом Орлеане газету «Креснт». Уитмен согласился и 25 февраля 1848 прибыл с младшим братом Джеффом в Новый Орлеан. В течение полувека биографы в самых радужных тонах описывали тамошнюю жизнь поэта, забывая, что брат постоянно болел, а сам Уитмен не находил общего языка с владельцами газеты. В результате 25 мая он подал в отставку и вернулся домой.
Не теряя времени, Уитмен приступил к созданию газеты, которая пропагандировала бы «свободную землю». Первый номер газеты «Бруклин фримен» вышел 9 сентября 1848, но на следующий день в типографии возник пожар и большая часть тиража сгорела. Уитмену не удалось возобновить издание до ноябрьских выборов, когда демократы потерпели поражение в штате Нью-Йорк. Газета существовала еще в течение года, но летом 1849, с появлением радикально настроенной группы демократов, стало ясно, что дни ее сочтены. Последний номер вышел 11 сентября. Уитмен еще будет печататься время от времени в нью-йоркских и бруклинских газетах, но на данный момент его журналистская деятельность прекратилась. В 1857–1858 он редактировал «Бруклин таймс», после чего окончательно расстался с редакторской деятельностью. Уитмен мог без труда вернуться к ней, но для этого пришлось бы идти на компромиссы.
Чтобы добыть средства к существованию, Уитмен брался за любую работу. В 1852–1854 служил строительным подрядчиком. Весной 1855 начал готовить к публикации Листья травы. Печатать книгу должны были его друзья из Бруклина братья Роум. Не найдя издательства, которое взяло бы на себя расходы, Уитмен выпустил книгу за свой счет, сам сделал часть набора. Книга вышла из печати в первую неделю июля.
Для первого издания поэтического сборника в Америке Листья травы 1855 года были необыкновенно богато оформлены. Сборник включал 12 стихотворений и пространное предисловие; открывавшая книгу поэма позднее получила название Песня о себе (Song of Myself). Вместо имени и фамилии Уитмен предпочел поместить на титульном листе гравюру со своего портрета, где он изображен в рубашке, рабочих брюках и щегольски сдвинутой набок шляпе. Во вступительной поэме он представлялся как «Уолт Уитмен, космос, сын Манхаттена», она начиналась словами «Я славлю себя», к которым позднее поэт добавил «и воспеваю себя». Главная тема поэмы – смысл человеческого бытия – вбирает в себя мотивы божественности человеческого «я», неразрывной связи души и тела, эволюции форм жизни, равенства всех живых существ и вечного странствия души в процессе рождения, смерти и нового рождения. Эти мотивы варьируются в прекрасной поэме, названной впоследствии Спящие (The Sleepers).
Одним из немногих, кто сразу же высоко оценил Листья травы, был Р.У.Эмерсон, находившийся тогда в зените славы. Письмо Эмерсона настолько вдохновило Уитмена, что он предпринял в 1856 второе издание, добавив новые стихотворенияи и включив письмо Эмерсона. Критика проигнорировала книгу. После двухлетнего редактирования «Бруклин таймс» Уитмен снова остался без работы и начал готовить новое издание Листьев травы. Книгу опубликовало в 1860 недавно возникшее бостонское издательство во главе с деятельными Тейером и Элдриджем, не выдержавшими, однако, финансовых потрясений, связанных с Гражданской войной 1861–1865. Из всех изданий книги Уитмена это самое примечательное. Помимо новых 124 стихотворений, оно включало три новых, очень существенных цикла: Демократические песни (Chants Democratic), Дети Адама (Enfants d'Adam, позднее название Children of Adam) и Каламус (Calamus).
Хотя в политическом памфлете Восемнадцатые выборы президента (The Eighteenth Presidency, 1856) Уитмен предсказал, что если сторонники рабовладения будут преобладать в федеральном правительстве, то Гражданская война неизбежна, захват форта Самтер конфедератами потряс его не меньше других. В порыве негодования он написал Бей! бей! барабан! (Beat! Beat! Drums!) – первое из стихотворений, составивших опубликованный после войны сборник Барабанный бой (Drum-Taps, 1865). После войны Уитмен служил в Вашингтоне в различных государственных учреждениях, в том числе в министерстве внутренних дел.
Опубликовал за свой счет поэтический цикл о Гражданской войне Барабанный бой и в дополнение к нему стихи памяти А.Линкольна Когда во дворе перед домом цвела этой весною сирень (When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd) и О Капитан! мой Капитан! (O Captain! My Captain!, 1865). В 1867 вышло четвертое, в 1871 пятое издание Листьев травы. В 1868 с фрагментами книги, отобранными и изданными У.Россетти, познакомились в Велибритании. Их доброжелательно встретили многие ведущие английские писатели того времени, поэтому писательская репутация Уитмена в Англии до конца его дней оставалась выше, чем в США.
В 1873 Уитмена разбил паралич, работать в Вашингтоне он больше не мог и вынужден был поселиться у брата Джорджи Уитмена, занимавшегося бизнесом в Камдене (шт. Нью-Джерси). Вторым испытанием в 1873 стала для него смерть матери, к которой он был необычайно привязан. Страдания облегчило ему присутствие молодого Х.Траубела, ухаживавшего за ним и записывавшего их беседы, напечатанные в 1908–1964 в пяти томах под названием С Уолтом Уитменом в Камдене (With Walt Whitman in Camden).
Одним из самых преданных друзей, появившихся у Уитмена в Англии после книги, составленной Россетти, стала Энн Гилкрист, вдова известного биографа У.Блейка А.Гилкриста, которая приехала в Филадельфию и два года жила неподалеку от поэта. В 1876 вышло издание его стихов, совпавшее со 100-летием провозглашения независимости США, а также сборник прозы и стихов Две речушки (Two Rivulets), который стараниями Россетти и Гилкрист хорошо расходился в Англии, но был равнодушно встречен в США. Успех его произведений в Англии благотворно подействовал на Уитмена, состояние его настолько улучшилось, что в 1879 он совершил поездку в западные штаты, а на следующий год посетил жившего в Канаде известного психиатра Р.М.Бака, который, прочтя Листья травы, приехал к нему в Камден. В 1883 Бак издал подробную биографию Уитмена.
Уитмен сумел подготовить очередное издание Листьев травы, окончательно определив композицию книги. Книгу напечатало ведущее бостонское издательство Осгуда. Однако некоторые стихотворения, которые Уитмен отказался убрать, были сочтены непристойными, что заставило Осгуда приостановить распространение тиража и заключить договор с Уитменом. Согласно договору, Уитмен получал печатные формы, и Р.Уэлш выпустил в 1882 в Филадельфии новый тираж, а также прозаическую книгу Памятные дни (Specimen Days), содержавшую автобиографию и ряд живых эпизодов времен Гражданской войны.
Перипетии с бостонским изданием получили огласку, благодаря чему издание Уэлша и допечатка, сделанная Д.Маккеем, продавались так хорошо, что Уитмен смог приобрести небольшой дом в Камдене. Несмотря на тяжелую болезнь, ему удалось в последние годы жизни подготовить издание Листьев травы, известное как «предсмертное». Маккей выпустил это издание и Прозу (Prose Works) в одинаковом оформлении.
В России Уитмен известен с начала 1860-х годов. В 1872 несколько его стихотворений перевел И.С.Тургенев, однако только в 1907 вышел первый сборник его стихов в переводе К.И.Чуковского. Уитмена переводили также К.Бальмонт, М.Зенкевич, И.А.Кашкин. Влияния его поэзии не избежали русские футуристы – В.В.Хлебников, ранний В.В.Маяковский.
http://www.peoples.ru/art/literature/poetry/oldage/walt_whitman/photo.html