Is going to Boston to visit Mrs. Fields for a week. Hopes she will come to visit when she gets back [from France]. Pioneers to be out in June. Has been reading proofs and feels happier with it again. Wants to tell her about the Swedish girl who was the model for the frontispiece; also about Fremstad. W. S. C. [Stout #258]
[A review of O Pioneers! enclosed.] Doesn't want to be blamed for this! Willie [Stout #263]
Will go to New York next week, then back here. Has been reading phone directories from various cities—L, K, and O in Minneapolis. Isabelle's sister Edith getting married. W. S. C. [Stout #266]
Glad the book is selling fairly well. How did the Heinemann edition do? Is going to Pittsburgh in a few days. Miss Lewis sailing for Naples toward the end of the month. W. S. C. [Stout #281]
Will finish the novel by summer at the latest. It will be twice as long as O Pioneers! and more interesting. How about calling it The Song of the Lark? Willa Cather [Stout #291]
Is sending most of the novel. About 20,000 words yet to write. Believes it is very good. Feels envious of Doubleday's sales methods. Houghton Mifflin ought to push this book more than they did O Pioneers! Parts of the story are drawn from her early years, including the death of the railroad man, which happened when she was about thirteen. Story is full of the West. Has hit it with this one! Willa Cather [Stout #295]
Please have foreign words set in italics. Copyeditor didn't in O Pioneers!. Also names of operatic roles. Hopes he has a proofreader who is fluent in Spanish and someone who can check the German used in the music lessons. Willa S. Cather [Stout #304]
Likes the jacket, but the copy is wrong—Moonstone, Colorado, not Arizona. Also, Thea and Fred go to Mexico, not New Mexico. Wishes it could say something about her artistic growth in the cliff dweller ruins. Actually, not so very happy with the cover. Couldn't it be more like British edition of Pioneers? Henry James seems patronizing in his essay on the Fieldses. Willa Cather [Stout #311]
Appreciates his understanding her purposes in the book. Was encouraged to undertake it by his review of Pioneers. Willa Sibert Cather [Stout #338]
People she knows from Sweden and Norway have indicated possible interest there in translations of O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark. Could he take it up with publishers, perhaps enclosing a copy of Edward Garnett's article in last February's Atlantic? Is enclosing a list of the best people to write. He can get their attention by mentioning that reviewers have thought Thea Kronborg was modeled after Olive Fremstad. Please send three dozen copies of the advertising booklet for her to send to people who inquire. Finishing some short stories for Reynolds to place, but will start on the next book soon. Hopes he can come to New York to discuss the Scandinavian possibilities. Will have a phone in soon and send him the number. Might he be there next Thursday [Dec. 21] for dinner with the Hambourgs, S. S. McClure, and Harry Dwight? McClure will tell everyone about the war. Willa S. C. [Stout #375]
