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 |
Certainly you are better at not forgetting old acquaintance than anyone I know. I
could not at all tell you over the telephone how much I feel your good will in going
into that review3 so heartily. Of course the appreciative tone4 of the notice will
help the book5, but it was not that which especially
pleased me. There was a frank and friendly ring about it that put courage into me
and made me feel equal to trying almost anything. Of course I am mighty glad that
you like the verses, but I am much more pleased that you seem glad to like them, and
that you blow upon me with such a friendly wind. Surely we can disprove Hesiod’s6 epigram that, “Potter
hates Potter,
and poet hates poet.” To tell you the truth, you
have so often handled me severely in private apropos of some of those same verses
that I rather expected chastisement and sunny clemency
has quite taken my breath away.
We shall expect you on Thursday night, and please come early, as soon after seven oclock as possible.
Faithfully Always Willa S. Cather April Twenty-Eighth.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0081.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0081
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- George Seibel1
- Date letter was written
- April 28 [1903]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
George Seibel's review of April Twilights was published on 26 April 1903, to which Cather responds in this letter.
- Place letter was written
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Individual Annotations
Seibel describes April Twilights as "a volume that will go through many editions if it meets with the appreciation it deserves" and "a volume that will firmly fix [Cather's] literary reputation, now confined to the ephemeral pages of magazines where even a prolific author is lost in the crowd."
Person Annotations
Seibel, George (1873-1958). American literary and drama critic.
Cather met Seibel and his wife Helen while working as editor of the
Home Monthly in Pittsburgh in 1896 and 1897. They
regularly studied French and German together, Cather read her work in
progress to him, and George reviewed April Twilights
(1903) in the Pittsburgh Gazette.
Hesiod (c. 700 BCE). Ancient Greek poet. Born in Boeotia in central Greece, Hesiod is believed to be a contemporary of Homer, and thus one of the first known Greek poets. His Theogeny tells of the origins of the gods and their descendants. His Works and Days describes human life, especially as related to men’s work. Willa Cather quotes part of an aphorism from Works and Days in a letter to George Seibel (#0081).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"A Pittsburgh Poet's Volume of Verse," Pittsburgh Gazette (April 26, 1903) by George Seibel
April Twilights (1903) by Willa Cather
