M. A. De Wolfe Howe (June 10, 1911)

#0197: Willa Cather to M. A. De Wolfe Howe, June 10, 1911

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MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE³,
44–60 EAST TWENTY–THIRD STREET,
NEW YORK. June
Ten
Nineteen Eleven Dear Mr. Howe¹:

I read the manuscript over yesterday with the greatest interest; there are certainly parts of it which might well go toward the making of the kind of article we are looking for, but they are so scattered that I do not see exactly how they could be bound together. We use so few biographical articles that there has to be a very special reason for accepting one. I think I could almost generalize, and say that we never do anything with biography except when it is the biography of a public man. Personally I greatly enjoyed reading this study, and I most heartily thank you for giving me a chance at it.

I was sorry to have to run away and leave you, yesterday but Mr. Mackenzie⁴, the business manager, was leaving town² for some days and I had to catch him and worry a decision out of him before he caught his train. Please let me know if you are in town again this summer. I should so like if we could arrange a comfortable hour chat.

With cordial regards to Mrs. Howell⁵ and yourself, I am

Faithfully Willa Sibert Cather Mr. M. DeWolfe Howe care The Youth's Companion⁶ Boston⁷, Mass.

Information about this letter:

Source File:: cat.let0197.xml
Letter identifier: 0197
Contents: Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto and verso.
Person to whom letter was written: M. A. De Wolfe Howe¹
Date letter was written: June 10, 1911
Place letter was written: New York, New York, United States²
Location of original letter: Howe, M. A. De Wolfe (Mark Antony DeWolfe), 1864–1960 (MS AM 1524), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA

Person Annotations

0232

Howe, Mark Antony De Wolfe (1864-1960). American author and editor. Born in Rhode Island and raised in Pennsylvania, Howe earned a BA from Lehigh University and a second BA and an MA in English literature from Harvard University. He worked as assistant editor of the Youth’s Companion from 1888 to 1893 and of the Atlantic Monthly from 1893 to 1895. In 1899 he married Fanny Quincy, daughter of Boston mayor Josiah Quincy, and returned to editorial work on the Youth’s Companion, which he continued until 1923. He became firmly associated with his adopted city, writing and editing books about it and its famous figures, including Memories of a Hostess: A Chronicle of Eminent Friendships Drawn Chiefly from the Diaries of Mrs. James T. Fields (1922), which Cather reviewed for the Atlantic Monthly and which inspired her essay “The House on Charles Street” (1922, later revised and retitled “148 Charles Street” [1936]). Cather corresponded with Howe in 1911 about a biographical essay he submitted for McClure’s Magazine, and they may have corresponded earlier when Cather’s poem “The Night Express” appeared in the Youth’s Companion or met in person at the Boston home Fields shared with Sarah Orne Jewett. As executor of Fields’ literary estate, Howe corresponded with Cather about the disposition of her letters to Fields. He died in Cambridge, MA.

0787

Mackenzie, Cameron (1882 -1921). American magazine editor and journalist. Born in Wilkes-Barre, PA, Cameron Mackenzie graduated from the Lawrenceville School, which his father founded, and studied at Yale University for a year before enrolling in the New York University Law School, from which he graduated in 1907. In 1907 he also married Elizabeth McClure, daughter of S. S. McClure. His father-in-law put him on the editorial staff of McClure’s Magazine, where he worked with Cather. In 1912 he and Frederick Collins wrested control of the magazine from S. S. McClure. Mackenzie resigned from McClure’s in 1915, subsequently writing two novels and serving as a correspondent for the London Morning Post during World War I. He died unexpectedly of pneumonia on board the Cunard liner Aquitania shortly after the ship departed London for New York City.

1305

Howe, Frances Huntington Quincy (1870-1933) (“Fanny”). American writer. Born in Quincy, MA, to Josiah Phillips Quincy and Helen Frances Huntington Quincy, Frances Huntington Quincy traveled in Europe for two years before marrying Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe in 1899; the couple had three children. Using the pseudonyms Wilmot Price, Catherine Russell, and Mrs. Grundy Frances, she contributed essays and stories to the Atlantic Monthly, Scribner’s, and New England Magazine. A series of anonymous essays she produced for the “Contributor’s Club” of the Atlantic were later collected as The Notion-Counter: A Farrago of Foibles, Being Notes About Nothing (1922). Willa Cather corresponded with Frances Howe’s husband and may have met the couple in person at the Boston home Annie Adams Fields shared with Sarah Orne Jewett.

Place Annotations

New York, New York, United States

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Work Annotations

McClure's Magazine

Youth's Companion