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 |
44-60 EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET,
NEW YORK2. November 30th Dear Mr. Ferrero1:
Of course4 I can readily understand that
you could not consent to write three articles which seemed to you without form and
purpose. However we are very reluctant to give up the idea of publishing some of
your work. Before Mr. McClure5 sailed he made
me an appropriation of one thousand dollars ($1,000) for the three articles that we hoped to get from you and the illustrations. Would
you be willing to write the two articles on Julius
Caesar6 for us for that sum, (five hundred dollars for each article,
one thousand dollars for the two)? Our great interest in
your work makes us hope that you will find it possible to do this. Such a study,
surely, would be complete in itself and would not
McCLURE'S MAGAZINE,
44-60 EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET,
NEW YORK. in any way be discreditable to you.
Thanking for the attention you have given this matter, I am
Very sincerely yours Willa Sibert CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0143.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0143
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, handwritten on recto of each leaf only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Guglielmo Ferrero1
- Date letter was written
- November 30 [1908]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
This letter is one in a series of letters from Cather to Ferrero, and the previous letter (#0142) establishes the year as 1908.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Guglielmo Ferrero Papers (MICROFLM F d 8304), Columbia University, Butler Library, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
See #0142 for Cather's request that Ferrero write a series of articles on Roman history.
Person Annotations
Ferrero, Guglielmo (1871-1942). Italian historian and writer.
Born near Naples, Italy, Ferrero studied law but was drawn to
political and classical studies. In 1901 he married Gina Lombroso, daughter
of Cesare Lombroso, a well-known psychiatrist and criminologist with whom
Ferrero collaborated on some early works. Ferrero’s five-volume history of
Rome was translated into English from 1907 to 1909 and made his reputation
in the English-speaking world. On a 1908 visit to the U.S., Theodore
Roosevelt invited him to the White House. Cather corresponded with him while
she was an editor at McClure’s Magazine, soliciting
articles from him which were published in April and May of 1909. The fascist
regime in Italy placed him under house arrest in 1925, but in 1930 he and
his family escaped to Switzerland.
McClure, Samuel Sidney (1857-1949) (“S.S.”). Irish-born
American publisher. McClure immigrated to the U.S. at age nine,
living with his family in Indiana. Despite poverty and the limited education
he had received in Ireland, he graduated from high school and then Knox
College in Illinois. He then moved to Boston, MA, where from 1882 to 1884 he
edited the Wheelman, a bicycling magazine. Despite
opposition from her parents, he married his Knox College classmate Harriet
Hurd in 1883. The couple had four biological children (Eleanor, Bess, Mary,
and Robert), and adopted one (Enrico). In 1884, S.S. started McClure’s
Syndicate, which placed fiction in newspapers across the country. In 1893
with his college classmate John Sanborn Phillips he started McClure's Magazine, which was best-known for the
"muckraking" exposés by writers such as Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens,
but which also published literature. After his cousin H.H. McClure, who
worked for the McClure Syndicate, brought Cather to S.S. McClure’s
attention, McClure, Phillips & Co. brought out Cather’s first book of
fiction, The Troll Garden (1905). When most of the
editorial staff, including Steffens and Tarbell, resigned from McClure’s in 1906, he hired Cather as an editor; she
later became managing editor. After she left her position at McClure’s in 1912 and when S. S. McClure had lost
control of the magazine still bearing his name, Cather ghost wrote his
autobiography (McClure’s serial 1913-1914, book
publication 1914). McClure made repeated—and ultimately
failed—attempts to reestablish himself in journalism and magazine
publishing, often trying to enlist Cather in these enterprises. She almost
went with him to Europe in 1915 to report on the war for the Evening Mail, and she remained personally loyal to
her mercurial and often-irresponsible former employer. He served as the
prototype for Marcus O’Mally, editor of the Outcry,
in her story “Ardessa” (1918), and it has been suggested that Cather modeled
the courtship and marriage between Myra and Oswald Henshaw in My Mortal Enemy (1926) on that of the McClures.
Julius Caesar (c. 102 BCE-44 BCE). Roman statesman and general. In the 58-49 Gallic Wars (58 BCE-49 BCE) Caesar brought all of Gaul under Roman control, establishing his reputation as a military leader. At the time of his assassination by C. Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, he was dictator for life of Rome. In a number of Willa Cather’s works, most notably The Song of the Lark (1915) and The Professor’s House (1925), characters read Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
McClure's Magazine
