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 |
I know you are glad to hear of the flattering
letter3 that calls me to New York4
and even though it delays that long deferred call
for another week. I remember Tricky Dick5,
however, and your trip to Chicago6, and am
not too sanguine.
Now on the blessed Sabbath, I want you to make me out a list of all the periodicals that review poetry and to which I ought to make sure that the book7 is sent. Do you know Weldin's8 have not had one copy save the one they ordered for you? Several people have telephoned me about it. Badger9 says they have’nt ordered any. What do you suppose is the matter?
Here’s hoping that McClures10 mean good things.
Faithfully W. S. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0083.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0083
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- George Seibel1
- Date letter was written
- [April 26, 1903]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Cather met with S. S. McClure on 1 May 1903 (see #0084), suggesting that this letter was written the Sunday before, 26 April 1903.
- Place letter was written
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Individual Annotations
In April 1903, Cather sent S. S. McClure stories at his invitation to be considered for publication. A week later, McClure telegraphed Cather summoning her to his offices in New York to discuss the stories (see #0084), some of which would eventually be published in book form as The Troll Garden (1905).
J. R. Weldin Co., a book and stationery store located at 431 Wood Street in Pittsburgh, PA.
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.
Mansfield, Richard (1857-1907). Anglo-American actor-manager.
Born in Germany, son of Russian soprano Erminia Rudersdorff,
Mansfield was educated in England and made his start with character roles in
Gilbert and Sullivan’s in light operas. He came to America in 1882, playing
an aging roué in A Parisian Romance (1883), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1887), along with more
conventional roles. His early success enabled him to form his own company;
he was noted for lavish and meticulous staging. One of the first to produce
George Bernard Shaw’s plays in America, Mansfield played the anti-heroes in
Arms and the Man in 1894 and The Devil’s Disciple in 1897. He married his leading woman,
Beatrice Cameron, in 1892. In her early journalism Cather praised Mansfield
for his dedication to his art.
Badger, Richard G. (1878-1937). American publisher. Born in Massachusetts, Badger established his printing house before he was twenty; one of the first books he published was Edwin Arlington Robinson’s Children of the Night (1897). Many of the books from his press were subsidized by the authors, including Cather’s first book, April Twilights (1903); in 1908 she bought the unsold copies of it. In addition to poetry, Badger also published avant-garde plays and fiction in the 1910s and books on abnormal psychology.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
April Twilights (1903) by Willa Cather
McClure's Magazine
