Famous Single Poems
name and that he lived “somewhere south of Dixon, Illinois.”
Mrs. Case, apparently, knew even less; but really the only way to have her tell her story is to resort to the deadly parallel:
| John Luckey McCreery in Songs of Toil and Triumph, 1883: | Lizzie York Case in the Detroit Free Press, August 1, 1905: |
| One E. Bulmer, of Illinois, copied it [“There Is No Death”], signed his own name to it, and sent it as his own to the Farmer’s Advocate, Chicago. The editor of some Wisconsin paper, whose name I have forgotten, if I ever knew, clipped it from the Farmer’s Advocate for his own columns; but supposing that there was a misprint in the signature, changed the m therein to a w, and thus the name of “Bulwer” became attached to the poem. | But then began the strange appropriation by others and false ascribing of my little poem [“There Is No Unbelief”]. A man named Bulmer, of Illinois, copied the poem and sent it under his own name to the Farmer’s Advocate of Chicago. A Wisconsin paper copied it, changing the name to Bulwer, assuming that “Bulmer” was a misprint. That accounts, I suppose, for its being accredited to Bulwer-Lytton. |
Poor Bulmer! What sins were committed in thy name!
Or perhaps the real villain of the piece is that Wisconsin editor who, whenever he came across Bulmer’s name attached to a poem, seems to have taken a fiendish delight in changing it to Bulwer. It may even be that Bulmer wrote some poems of his own which were reft from
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