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 |
Your note has been so long unanswered that I am almost ashamed to take it up now.
I
was truly disappointed to find that you had been in this city when I was out of
town, and I was more than a little pleased that you had wished to see me and had
made such a determined effort to do so. I wanted
would have loved a quiet hour's talk with you about
your own work and about Miss Aikens4'. Perhaps
we may have that yet.
May I congratulate you upon your poem5 in the May Scribners6? I thought it excellent. That number was rich in verse; Mrs. Dargan7's poem8 was far above her average, I thought.
Sometime, on my way West, I am going to stop over in St. Louis9 for a day and, that after having duly warned you and Miss Aikens in the hope that you will spend it with me. Then I shall hear all about the two of you, and can give you the sage advice of an overworked editor.
Faithfully Willa Sibert CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0191.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0191
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Sara Teasdale 1
- Date letter was written
- May 9, 1911
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949, in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library (#6494-6494-i), University of Virginia, Special Collections, Charlottesville, VA
Individual Annotations
82 Washington Place (New York City): Cather's second apartment in New York City and the first one she shared with Edith Lewis, located in Greenwich Village in the Manhattan borough. Cather and Lewis lived here from 1908 to 1911.
Person Annotations
Teasdale, Sara (1884-1933). American poet. Teasdale was born
in St. Louis, MO, and was a schoolmate there of Cather’s friend Zoë Akins.
Teasdale became part of the circle of writers associated with Harriet
Monroe’s magazine Poetry. She married Ernst Filsinger
in 1914 and the couple moved to New York City in 1916. She was awarded the
Columbia University Poetry Prize (later renamed the Pulitzer Prize) in 1918
for her volume Love Poems (1917). Her final volume of
verse, Strange Victory (1933), appeared posthumously
after she committed suicide.
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’.
Dargan, Olive Tilford (1869-1968). American writer. Born in Tilford Springs, KY, Olive Tilford moved with her family to Missouri and then Arkansas, where she began teaching when she was fourteen. After receiving a teaching degree, she studied at Radcliffe College where she met her future husband, Pegram Dargan. After marrying in 1898, the couple moved to New York City to write; Olive Dargan published Semiramis and Other Plays in 1904. Other collections of blank verse plays followed, and a volume of lyric poetry, Pathflowers (1914). Widowed in 1915, she moved to North Carolina, where she wrote short stories about the rural people of the area, and later, novels of social protest under the pseudonym Fielding Burke.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"Helen," Scribner's Magazine (May, 1911) by Sara Teasdale
Scribner's Magazine
"In the Blue Ridge," Scribner's Magazine (May, 1911) by Olivia Tilford Dargan
