Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Letter from Joseph Lister, Edinburgh, to W. E. Henley, 1875 July 5 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
120907
Accession number
MA 1617.329
Creator
Lister, Joseph, Baron, 1827-1912.
Display Date
Edinburgh, Scotland, 1875 July 5.
Credit line
Purchased as the gift of Edwin J. Beinecke, 1955.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 18.4 x 11.4 cm
Notes
Written from "9, Charlotte Square / Edinburgh" on stationery engraved with the address.
Henley's poem, "A Student," was a racist and derogatory portrait of George Rice (1848-1935), a Black American medical student then attending the University of Edinburgh. Rice would become house surgeon under Lister at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary (Henley was a patient there in 1873-1875). Henley did not include "A Student" in further publications of his "Hospital" poems.
Provenance
Purchased as the gift of Edwin J. Beinecke, 1955.
Summary
Thanking him for a copy of the Cornhill Magazine which had published Henley's "Hospital" verses and commenting on them; saying "It may interest you to see, if you have not already done so, what is said of them by the paper of which I send you a copy. I may add that it expresses very much my own feeling about them: they have surprised and pleased me very much. Of one of your portraits it would not become me to speak; but of another, that of 'A Student', you will I trust forgive me for saying that I cannot help regretting the publication of so severe a picture. I say this as your friend, because I sincerely hope with the Review that we shall 'hear again of' you as a poet; and I am afraid indulgence in this vein may make you needless enemies of those whom you so sharply chastise. I rejoice that you can report so favorably of your foot and quite hope it will soon be sound."