Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
I have sent a card to Miss McClosky4, and I
hope she will come in some Friday afternoon. AL
Also, I hope to see your sister again.
Yes, heavy lettering like this is the kind I had in mind, and I think the name had better be spelled correctly in the title5; the two e's look ugly. However, I think it would be better if the two lines over and under the letters were respectively lifted and lowered; then the accent mark over the initial A would be more conspicuous.
Will you please mail me two of the picture jackets you used for "The Song of the Lark"6? I want to use some of the detail for the drawings Benda7 is making.
12/5/17 PLR Sincerely yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0401.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0401
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alverda Van Tuyll1
- Date letter was written
- December 4 [1917]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944 (MSAm1925), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Individual Annotations
5 Bank Street (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis beginning in 1912, located in Greenwich Village in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Subway construction forced Cather and Lewis to relocate in 1927.
Person Annotations
Van Tuyll, Alverda. Houghton Mifflin staff member. Van Tuyll read the manuscript of The Song of the Lark (1915) and worked on promotional materials related to the novel. She also worked on the production of My Ántonia (1918).
McCloskey, Miss. Associate of Alverda Van Tuyll. No further information is available about this person.
Benda, W. T. (1873-1948) ("Wladyslaw Theodor") . Polish-born
American graphic artist. Born in Poland, W.T. Benda studied art
in Krakow and in Vienna, Austria. In 1899, he came to the U.S. to visit his
aunt, actress Helena Modjeska, and worked on her ranch in California until
1902, when he moved to New York City and studied at the Art Students League.
He became well known for his illustrations appearing in both books and
leading magazines, including McClure's during
Cather's editorship there. He was particularly known for his
charcoal-and-wash drawings of exotic beauties known as “Benda women.”
Naturalized as an American citizen in 1911, Benda married Romola Campfield,
with whom he had two daughters, and lived the rest of his life in New York.
Willa Cather chose Benda to illustrate My Ántonia
(1918), and the payment for and number of these illustrations became a
source of conflict with publisher Houghton Mifflin.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
The Song of the Lark (1915) by Willa Cather
