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 |
44-60 EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
NEW YORK2 EDITORIAL ROOMS October first 1910. My dear Norman1:-
Have you happened to think of possible subjects for articles? If people have
something in mind that they want to do, they usually do that better than they do
assignments. If you have any subjects in mind and wish to tell me what they are, I
could at least tell you whether they would be imposible for us. We have had half a dozen answers to Dr. Burroughs3
article4 sent to us; some of them so good that I hated
to send them back,.
bBut of course, that controversy could be prolonged indefinitely.
I am afraid my Plainfield5 plain letter6 betrayed a rather garrulous and irritated state of mind. I did not mean to be intrusive personally. I had on my desk then eight letters from young college men who wanted to do something for the Magazine7. Three of them had tried with very poor success. I am afraid you got the whole outcome of my ruminations on why the young college man does not often settle down to work of this sort satisfactorily. Perhaps I thought you might be able to throw some light on the "why" of it, as you are so much nearer the graduate student than I am. However, I hope we shall have an opportunity to talk over thewe things some day and then perhaps you can enlighten me.
Very cordially yours, Willa Sibert Cather Mr. Norman Forester, Holsworthy Hall, Cambridge, Mass.8Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0185.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0185
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Norman Foerster1
- Date letter was written
- October 1, 1910
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collected Materials (MS008), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
See #0183.
Person Annotations
Foerster, Norman (1887-1972). American literary scholar.
Norman Foerster was born in Pittsburgh, PA; he was one of Cather’s
students when she taught English at Central High School in Pittsburgh. He
went on to receive his A.B. from Harvard in 1910 and his MA from the
University of Wisconsin in 1912. He taught English at the universities of
Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Iowa, as well as at Duke University. Foerster
was a part of the neohumanist movement, along with Irving Babbitt and Paul
Elmer More. He wrote often about the role of higher education as well as
about American literature. His book, Toward Standards
(1930) was dedicated to Cather and to Robert Frost. Cather corresponded with
him occasionally about his work.
Burroughs, John (1837-1921). American essayist and naturalist. Burroughs was born on a farm in the Catskill Mountains near Roxbury, NY. He spent his early years working as a teacher. Burroughs married Ursula North in 1857 and in 1864, began work as a clerk at the Treasury in Washington D.C., eventually becoming a federal banker. In 1867, he wrote about his friend Walt Whitman in the book Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person, and published his first collection of nature essays, Wake Robin, in 1871. He relocated to property he purchased in rural New York in 1873 to devote himself to his writing. In 1907, Willa Cather’s friend John Slack, who entertained Burroughs when he visited Pittsburgh later that year, pointed Burroughs to Cather’s work and apparently shared the "commendation" that followed. Burroughs published "Animal Behavior and the New Psychology" in the July 1910 issue of McClure's Magazine while Cather was working as managing editor.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"Animal Behavior and the New Psychology," McClure's Magazine (July 1910) by John Burroughs
McClure's Magazine
