Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| 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 |
Last night I was reading over Miss
Bloom's3 letters, and came upon one of her best4. In writing to a French scholar5, I said something about
Washington's6 tactful treatment of
"the impetuous and romantic young Marquis de
Lafayette7." Bloom wrote it
Marquis D. Lafayette!
Can you beat it? To a Frenchman!
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2248.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2248
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- [unknown recipient]1
- Date letter was written
- [1942 to 1947]
- Place letter was written
- unknown place2
- Location of original letter
- Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection (MS316), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
The referenced letter to Benjamin Hitz is #1573.
Person Annotations
Unknown recipient. No further information is available about this person.
Bloom, Sarah J. (1889-1961). Cather's personal secretary. Born in New York in 1889 to Russian immigrants Solomon and Bertha Bloom, Sarah J. Bloom worked for Cather from some time in the 1920s until Cather's death and continued to work for Edith Lewis on matters pertaining to Cather's literary estate thereafter. Bloom typed Cather's literary manuscripts and managed Cather's correspondence, typing dictated letters and sometimes responding for Cather when she was traveling. Bloom’s work for Cather supplemented full-time office employment in New York City (for many years she worked for the New York State Public Service Commission). She thus came to Cather and Lewis's apartment on weekends to take dictation, pick up and deliver typescripts, and deliver typed letters for signature. She died in New York city in 1961.
Hitz, Benjamin D. (1890-1949). American businessman and collector. Benjamin Hitz was born in Indiana and attended Indiana University. After his 1917 marriage to Elizabeth Holliday, he served with a medical unit in France during World War I. After the war he started a real estate business and began collecting materials on the history of Indiana and the Midwest, and on writers Mary Webb and Willa Cather. He commissioned Flora Bullock, Cather’s University of Nebraska classmate, to compile a bibliography of her early journalism, published during her student years. In 1942 he sent Cather materials relating to Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927).
Washington, George (1732-1799). American president.
Washington was the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army during
the American Revolutionary War. After the war, Washington helped to write
the U.S. Constitution and was then elected as the first U.S. President.
Lafayette, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de
(1757-1834). French military leader. A French aristocrat who
became enamored of the cause of the patriots in the American Revolutionary
War, Lafayette fought for the Continental Army as a major-general and formed
a friendship with George Washington. He returned to France, and during the
French Revolution, was forced to flee and did not return until 1799.
Lafayette was eventually elected to the Chamber of Deputies during the rule
of Napoleon.
Place Annotations
