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 |
The Grosvenor3
35 FIFTH AVENUE
New York FG January 26th Dear Mr. Greenslet1;
Please ask your business office to send me a statement of the amount they have paid me in royalties4 during the fiscal year ending January 1st.
As a letter5
sent from the President
of Princeton6 sent in care of Houghton Mifflin was forwarded to
Pasadena7, I gather you do not know
I am here2. I will be here until February
16, perhaps a little longer, and if you are in town before that time I wish I might
see you. Please ask your mailing department to forward letters to me here until
further notice.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1037.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1037
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Ferris Greenslet1
- Date letter was written
- January 26 [1931]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by corresponding letters from Houghton Mifflin staff.
- 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
Grosvenor Hotel (New York City): When Cather and Edith Lewis lost their 5 Bank Street apartment in 1927, they moved into the Grosvenor Hotel, where they continued to live until 1932. The hotel was located at 35 Fifth Avenue in the Manhattan borough of New York City.
On 28 January 1930, Greenslet reported that Houghton Mifflin had paid Cather $3,172.08 in royalties. He also apologized for the mail forwarding error and suggested he wanted to talk over with her the impression she made on Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (see #1021).
Hibben likely wrote Cather inviting her to receive an honorary degree from Princeton University at its 1931 commencement; she accepted the invitation.
Person Annotations
Greenslet, Ferris (1875-1959). American editor and writer.
Born in Glens Falls, NY, Ferris Greenslet earned a BA (1897) from
Wesleyan University and a PhD (1900) from Columbia University. He served as
associate editor at the Atlantic Monthly from 1902 to
1907, and married Ella Stoothoff Hulst in 1903; they had two children,
Marguerite (born 1904) and George (born 1906). As an author he specialized
in biography. He became literary editor at Houghton Mifflin, the Boston
publisher of the Atlantic, c. 1908 and was socially
and professionally acquainted with Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett,
who may have introduced him to Cather. He evidently solicited Cather to
submit Alexander’s Bridge (1912), her first published
novel, to Houghton Mifflin. In 1910, when Greenslet became editor in chief
of the trade department, Roger Scaife divided his shares as a director of
the company with him, and the two presented themselves to authors as
partners, with Scaife handling book advertising and format and Greenslet
negotiating contracts and supervising editing; when Greenslet was absent
from the office, Scaife handled correspondence with Cather. Greenslet became
a director of Houghton Mifflin in 1919 and manager of the trade department
in 1933. Cather left Houghton Mifflin as a publisher for Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc., because she became dissatisfied with the production and advertising of
her books. However, she remained on cordial terms with Greenslet and
undertook several projects for him after her departure. Her extant letters
to him constitute one of the largest groups to a single correspondent.
Hibben, John Grier (1861-1933). President of Princeton University.
John Grier Hibben was born in Peoria, IL, and graduated from
Princeton University in 1882. After a brief career in the ministry, he
returned to Princeton as an instructor, earning his PhD there in 1893. He
was a highly successful academic, wrote and edited many books of philosophy,
and became Princeton's president in 1912. During his two decades as
president, Princeton grew tremendously and earned a reputation as a top
research university. Cather met him in 1931 when she received an honorary
degree from Princeton.
Place Annotations
