Richard Maurice Bucke, physician, hospital administrator, adventurer, scholar, mystic, editor, and author, is mainly remembered in literary history as the friend, first biographer, and literary executor of the American poet Walt Whitman. Besides editing or coediting several volumes of Whitman's writings, Bucke was the author of three books and dozens of articles reflecting a wide variety of interests. His best-known book, Cosmic Consciousness, has been continuously in print since its first publication in 1901, and his life and writings have been the subjects of articles, theses, and books by literary scholars, philosophers, and historians. The list of international authors who have expressed admiration for Bucke's work includes William James, P. D. Ouspensky, Edward Carpenter, Algernon Blackwood, Aldous Huxley, and Henry Miller. In spite of this extensive recognition, however, he remains largely neglected by English-Canadian literary history. This neglect can be related to the diversity of his writings, which elude...