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 notice that in his very cordial3 letter Mr. Lorimer4 speaks of the story5 they have just bought for the Journal6 as "Old Miz Harris". Please call his attention to the fact that this is a very small variation from my text but it is an important one. In the first place it sounds as though the story were a Southern dialect story, which it isn't. In the second place it gives to anyone acquainted with the South a very wrong impression of the old lady's7 social status. Poor mountain people would certainly call her "Miz" but her neighbors and people of her own station would always call her "Mrs." And that is the designation of her respectable middle class position.
I hope of course, that the editors will be careful to see that there is no change in the text anywhere without my consent.
Yours sincerely, W Cather Miss Manley M.Aaron Alfred A.Knopf, Inc. 750 Fifth Avenue New York, N.Y.2 r
