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 EDITORIAL ROOMS January 27th, 1909. My dear Miss Akins1:-
I was so glad to hear from you and delighted to hear about the funny negro family. What a rich sort of people they are in imagination, after all!
I am sending the verse back to you. None of it is adapted for magazine publication. The short one, "THE ROAD", is not quite up to the standard we try to follow, and the good ones are much too long. One of the long ones, "L'EMPIRE DE L'AMOUR"4, has real merit - feeling and melody. In some places it falls to a rather childish form of expression - the first five lines in Part II, for instance,— but I think there is real poetic feeling in it.
I wonder whether you will ever settle down and do something with all your might and
main, and whether it will be verse, or playwriting, or what?
aAnd whether
you will ever cease to coquette with the stage. Perhaps it will be better if you
don't. Playwriting, if one has a gift that way and if one cares about the stage,
must surely be a most delightful occupation as it is a most remunerative kind of work. About these things
I know very little and can give you no suggestions. The older I grow the less
interest I have in the theatre. I used to care a good deal about Miss Terry5 and was interested in Mr. Mansfield6. I still feel a good deal of interest
in George Arliss7, but for the most part the work that is being done on the stage just now does
not happen to be the sort that I can get any satisfaction from. I have a sort of
feeling that your real gift lies toward playwriting;
because some of the verses that you
have sent me have, I think, fancy and melody in them.
Whatever your work may be I wish you every success in it. If you can once get away from "people",-the "interesting" followers of this art and that,-and get settled to the work itself, I shall look for something from you.
Faithfully always, Willa Sibert Cather Miss Zoe Akins, 4116 Westminister Place, St. Louis, Missouri8.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0151.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0151
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto and verso
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins1
- Date letter was written
- January 27, 1909
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Zoë Akins papers, 1878-1959 (mssAU 1-5456), Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
Person Annotations
Akins, Zoë (1886-1958). American poet, playwright, and screenwriter.
Akins’ friendship with Cather started in 1909, when she submitted
verse to McClure’s magazine, which Cather rejected,
advising her to stay with playwriting. Akins subsequently moved from her
hometown of St. Louis, MO, to New York City and achieved success as a
playwright. She moved to California in the 1930s, adding screenwriting to
her accomplishments. Her play The Old Maid (1935), an
adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. In
1932, Akins married Captain Hugh Rumbold, a British theatrical designer and
director; he died eight months later. Cather and Akins carried on a lifelong
correspondence, with Cather writing affectionate letters that included both
commentary on her own works and criticism of Akins’.
Terry, Ellen (1847-1928). English actress. Born in an English theatrical family, Ellen Terry began performing at age eight. At sixteen, she married artist George Frederick Watts, but they soon separated. In 1868 she left the stage for six years to live with architect and designer Edward Godwin, with whom she had two children, Edith Craig and Edward Gordon Craig. She returned to the stage, and in 1878 she joined Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theatre Company as leading lady in a long-lasting and successful partnership. They were especially famous for their Shakespearean roles. Terry formed her own company in 1903 to showcase modern plays, particularly those of Ibsen and her friend George Bernard Shaw. Although the company was not a success, Terry continued to tour; she married actor James Carew in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1907. She also acted in films and gave lectures and recitals until a few years before her death. She was made a Dame of the Order of the British Empire in 1925. Carrie Miner Sherwood, apparently told Mildred Bennett that Cather had ghost-written Terry’s autobiography, which appeared in McClure’s Magazine in 1907-1908, but that is highly unlikely. Cather published "Between the Acts" in 1894 in the Nebraska State Journal, which contained a somewhat sensational account of Watts and Terry's relationship, describing the pair as trying to "worship art and each other at the same time." However, Cather said in a 1909 letter that she "used to care a good deal” about Terry (#0151), and in 1924 Burton Rascoe reported hearing Cather praise Terry at length.
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.
Arliss, George (1868-1946). English stage and film actor. Born in London, England, George Augustus Andrews was educated at Harrow School. He went on the stage at eighteen, taking Arliss as his stage name. After playing supporting roles on the London stage, he went to the U.S. in 1901 with Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s company. Arliss and his wife, actress Florence Montgomery Arliss, remained in the U.S. until the late 1930s. He became a star of the stage, of several silent films, and of sound motion pictures, and was especially identified with the role of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli on stage and screen, receiving the Academy Award for best actor for the sound version of Disraeli. Cather knew the Arlisses socially in New York from around 1910 and apparently corresponded with Florence Arliss.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
McClure's Magazine
"Empire D'Amour," Interpretations: A Book of First Poems (1912) by Zoë Akins
