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 thank you for your kind and friendly letter of instructions. I shall off course be willing to make a very few remarks upon accepting the medal3. I expect to be present at the exercises tomorrow, (Thursday), but I shall not be able to accept your kind invitation for Sunday afternoon, as I shall be returning to the country on Saturday.
Very sincerely yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1024.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1024
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Robert U. Johnson1
- Date letter was written
- November 12 [1930]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather receiving the William Dean Howells Medal for Death Comes for the Archbishop on 14 November 1930.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Autograph File, C, 1554-2002, Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Individual Annotations
The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded Cather the William Dean Howells Medal for Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) on 14 November 1930. The Academy awards the medal every five years in recognition of an oustanding novel published during that period.
Person Annotations
Johnson, Robert Underwood (1853-1937). American editor, poet, and
diplomat. Born in Washington, DC, and educated at Earlham
College, Johnson began his career in publishing as a clerk at Scribner
Educational Books and was soon promoted to the editorial staff at Scribner’s Monthly, which evolved into the Century Magazine. He was promoted to editor in chief
of the Century in 1909 and resigned in 1913. At the
Century he accepted Cather’s “The Joy of Nellie
Dean” (1911) and rejected “Behind the Singer Tower” (1912). Johnson also was
a respected poet, an advocate of international copyright and environmental
conservation, the secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and
briefly (1920-1921) U.S. Ambassador to Italy.
Place Annotations
