• Letter ID: 2070
• Addressee: Cather, Roscoe
• Date: 1913
• Repository: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives and Special Collections, Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection (MS316)

To Roscoe Cather,  [1913?] , possibly a fragment ; UNL-Roscoe 

Has gotten many responses, but does Roscoe like the novel? He should read July 25 piece on O Pioneers! in the Denver Republican ["Some Real American Literature," The Denver Republican, (July 25, 1913): 4].   W. 

• Letter ID: 0249
• Addressee: Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley
• Date: 1912-12-07
• Repository: Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

To Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant,  Dec. 7, [1912], from Pittsburgh ; PM 

Enjoyed her letter. Has nearly finished new story. Can't write when she is gathering material; the two processes are separate. Recommends Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. Wants to write more, but very busy with holiday season plus writing the murder in her story.   W. S. C.   [Stout #249]

• Letter ID: 0252
• Addressee: Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley
• Date: 1913
• Repository: Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

To Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant,  n.d. [1913?] , from no. 5 Bank Street, New York ; PM 

Being back in New York and going to the opera makes her want people around. Wishes they could have a good visit. Won't she come for a visit when she gets back? May go to Virginia in May. Sending "Pioneers" for her to read. Be honest.   W. S. C.   [Stout #252]

• Letter ID: 0256
• Addressee: Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley
• Date: 1913-04-14
• Repository: Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

To Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant,  Apr. 14, [1913?], from no. 5 Bank Street ; PM 

Would have liked to go to France with her. Proofs of Pioneers coming in. Not so pleased with it as at first. Is getting acquainted with Olive Fremstad, who is rather overwhelming.   W. S. C.   [Stout #256]

• Letter ID: 0257
• Addressee: Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley
• Date: 1913-04-22
• Repository: Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

To Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant,  Apr. 22, [1913] ; PM 

Has not succeeded in getting Outlook to commit to a publication date for her article. Would she please edit the French in Pioneers? So glad she likes it. Understands she would like a more distinct structure, but that wouldn't suit the country. Mr. Greenslet likes it. Still, wishes to do something different. Would like to be able to write what is in Fremstad's mind. Saw her after she had sung Kundry in Parsifal [ Wagner ] yesterday, and she looked exhausted. Isabelle is visiting. Misses her.   W   [Stout #257]

• Letter ID: 0258
• Addressee: Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley
• Date: 1913-04-25
• Repository: Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

To Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant,  Apr. 25, [1913] ; PM 

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]

• Letter ID: 0263
• Addressee: Weisz, Irene Miner
• Date: 1913-08
• Repository: Newberry Library, Chicago

To Irene Miner Weisz,  n.d. [Aug. 1913?] ; Newberry 

[A review of O Pioneers! enclosed.] Doesn't want to be blamed for this!   Willie   [Stout #263]

• Letter ID: 0281
• Addressee: Greenslet, Ferris
• Date: 1914-05-02
• Repository: Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.

To Ferris Greenslet,  May 2, [1914], from New York ; Harvard 

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]

• Letter ID: 0304
• Addressee: Scaife, R. L.
• Date: 1915-05-12
• Repository: Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.

To R. L. Scaife,  May 12, [1915], from New York ; Harvard 

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]

• Letter ID: 0377
• Addressee: Greenslet, Ferris
• Date: 1917-01-21
• Repository: Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.

To Ferris Greenslet,  Jan. 21, 1917, from New York ; Harvard 

Has heard people are having trouble finding copies of O Pioneers!. Latest statement seems to indicate they are letting it go out of stock. Since it is selling a few hundred a year in its fourth year, would think they would want to keep it available. Certainly an author wants that.   Willa Cather   [Stout #377]

• Letter ID: 0491
• Addressee: Greenslet, Ferris
• Date: 1920-01-11
• Repository: Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.

To Ferris Greenslet,  Jan. 11, [1920] ; Harvard 

Likes the new binding of O Pioneers!. Now how about a new jacket? Still no telephone. Could he come in next Saturday evening [Jan. 17]? He would also be welcome for tea on Friday, when she is customarily in for visitors.   W. S. C.   [Stout #491]

• Letter ID: 0922
• Addressee: Sherwood, Carrie Miner
• Date: 1928
• Repository: Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation

To Carrie Miner Sherwood, n.d. [shown as 1928 in C. M. S.'s hand] [inscription in copy of O Pioneers!] ; WCPM , printed in O'Brien.

"For Carrie Sherwood. This was the first time I walked off on my own feet—everything before was half read and half an immitation [sic] of writers whom I admired. In this one I hit the home pasture and found that I was Yance Sorgeson [Sorgenson; Webster County farmer] and not Henry James.   Willa Cather   [Stout #922]

• Letter ID: 1401
• Addressee: Greenslet, Ferris
• Date: 1938-03-02
• Repository: Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.

To Ferris Greenslet,  Mar. 2, 1938 ; Harvard 

Is recovering from influenza. Enjoyed reading about his meeting with Stephen Tennant and mother and stepfather, Sir Edward Grey. Didn't mean Grey was stern, but his interests and Stephen's utterly dissimilar. Very pleased with O Pioneers! in autograph edition. Did he hear the recital Hephzibah and Yehudi Menuhin gave in Boston? Such a joy to know them!   Willa Cather   [Stout #1401]

• Letter ID: 1643
• Addressee: Greenslet, Ferris
• Date: 1943-10-22
• Repository: Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.

To Ferris Greenslet,  Oct. 22, 1943 ; Harvard 

Has received two letters from him. Since he mentions he has been fishing, assumes he is well. The second [saying that they need to reprint O Pioneers! and would like to do so with another company's imprint along with their own on the title page in order to utilize that company's quota of paper, under wartime rationing] is most unwelcome. Why should her books be victimized, since they are not long and do not sell huge numbers? Understands that in England the system is to trim down popular hits in order to protect small-market books. This might mean, for example, trimming part of the margin off The Robe [ Douglas ] to save paper for printing Julian Huxley or T. S. Eliot. Is not signing the consent form he sent.   Willa Cather   [Stout #1643]

• Letter ID: 1846
• Addressee: Cather, Elsie
• Date: 1913-10
• Repository: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives and Special Collections, Susan J. and James Rosowski Cather Collection (MS228)

To Bobbie [nickname for Elsie Cather],  [October? 1913] , from 1180 Murray Hill Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA ; UNL-Rosowski Cather 

Is working hard after two weeks in Virginia, and Isabelle is preparing for her sister Edith's wedding.  Pleased Elsie is doing some horseback riding.  Wishes to get back to beautiful Nebraska.  Sending a review from the Nation [97 (4 Sept. 1913): 210-211].  Likes beating out Norris and Phillips [Nation reviewer compared O Pioneers! to their work].   Willie 

• Letter ID: 1894
• Addressee: Cather, Elsie
• Date: 1913-10
• Repository: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives and Special Collections, Susan J. and James Rosowski Cather Collection (MS228)

To Bobbie [nickname for Elsie Cather],  [October? 1913] possibly sent with #1846; UNL-Rosowski Cather 

Enclosed review [of O Pioneers!] is from the Nation [97 (4 Sept. 1913): 210-211], which rarely publishes a positive review of a novel. Used to see Phillips at the Waldorf and said to herself that she understood the west better than he did, but no one would ever believe a woman. Now they do! Is very pleased. Please send back after Roscoe sees it.   Willie 

• Letter ID: 0250
• Addressee: Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley
• Date: 1913
• Repository: Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

To Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant,  n.d. [early 1913? per E. S. S. note] , from no. 5 Bank Street, New York ; PM 

Has been getting settled in the new apartment, including floors being painted. Thanks for the Christmas present. Has been hearing a lot of music. New book twice as long as Alexander. Has taken her themes from the long grass, as Dvořák did in the New World Symphony (which was not made from Negro songs as people say). Nervous about the new story, though it is just what she has been wanting to write. Probably very few people will like it.   Willa Cather   [Stout #250]

• Letter ID: 0239
• Addressee: Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley
• Date: 1912-07-05
• Repository: Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

To Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant,  July 5, [1912], from Red Cloud, Nebr. ; PM 

Hopes to hear she is better. Is going to the Bohemian area to see the wheat harvest next week. Leaving for Pittsburgh in about two weeks. Will work on a story to be called "The White Mulberry Tree" that will alarm Ferris Greenslet. [Enclosure: poem "Prairie Spring"]   W. S. C.   [Stout #239]

• Letter ID: 0246
• Addressee: Akins, Zoë
• Date: 1912-10-31
• Repository: University of Virginia, Alderman Library, Charlottesville, Va.

To Zoë Akins,  Oct. 31, [1912?], from Pittsburgh ; UVa 

Don't overwork while running a temperature. Glad she likes "The Bohemian Girl." Feels pretty good about it. Is doing a longer story with the same setting; actually, setting is the main character. Saw Arnold Bennett's Milestones in New York. Wishes the office would quit interrupting her work.   W. S. C.   [Stout #246]

• Letter ID: 0254
• Addressee: Cather, Frances (Franc) Smith
• Date: 1913-02-23
• Repository: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives and Special Collections, George Cather Ray Collection (MS113)

To Mrs. George P. Cather [Aunt Franc],  Feb. 23, 1913, from no. 5 Bank Street (written in above McClure's letterhead), New York ; UNL-Ray 

Thanks for the letter. Has just finished a new novel, having reduced her work for the magazine by half. Is settling into new apartment, which had to have considerable refurbishing but was worth it, spacious and quiet. Has bought four Persian rugs. The same colored maid as for the past four years is still keeping life in order. Agrees that Alexander is morally flimsy, but goodness in characters does not necessarily make strong fiction. Believes she will like the new novel better. Elsie is enjoying her teaching. Finds that one of the rewards of nearing forty years old is feeling more comfortable with older relatives, who always used to seem rather intimidating. Not so much Aunt Franc and Father as others.   Willie   [Stout #254]