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 |
I turn again to your beautiful long letter and again hope that you are quietly settled, with some firm person to keep you from shopping when you have a temperature. Working, writing, at least, is not apt to hurt you if you do a little at a time and try not to get excited about it. I believe one works better when one is reasonably calm, after all. Don’t you?
I am so glad you liked “The Bohemian Girl.”4 Yes, I really think it’s pretty good myself. Im doing another5 about three times as long about the same country. In this new one the country itself is frankly the hero—or the heroine—though I think the people, Swedes and Bohemians, are rather interesting, too. There’ll be a little verse6 about that country in the December McClure’s7.
I’ve been on to New York8 twice since I wrote you, and saw one excellent play there—Arnold Bennett9's “Milestones.”10 Quite a new sort of thing, strong as a steel spring. Of course I’d get on faster with my new story if the office11 would let me sit tight for awhile.
I loved your letter about California12 and the strange people you found there, especially Mrs. Oliver13. She must have been a delightful person. What you said about liking to “impress” people amused me greatly.
I had such awfully hard training in the corn fields that I don’t think I had that joyful stage—no “effects” could be made there by any stunts I could do, except, maybe, horseback riding. You can’t get any rise out of a cow with a sonnet, none whatsoever. Still, the desire to shine a little to people we admire, we all have, and in you its a thing to which I find myself soft-hearted. I’m hoping for a line, with good news of you, when you have time.
Affectionately W. S. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0246.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0246
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins 1
- Date letter was written
- October 31 [1912]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by the publication of Cather's "The Bohemian Girl" in the August 1912 issue of McClure's Magazine.
- Place letter was written
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 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
1180 Murray Hill Avenue (Pittsburgh, PA): Located in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA, now part of the Murray Hill Avenue Historic District, 1180 Murray Hill was the home of Judge Samuel A. McClung and his family. Cather lived there at Isabelle McClung’s invitation from 1901 to 1906. She returned there to visit multiple times until 1915, often writing during these visits.
Cather went to see Bennett's play as part of her research for "Plays of Real Life," published in McClure's in March 1913.
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’.
Bennett, Arnold (1867-1931). British novelist and playwright. Born in Staffordshire, England, Arnold Bennett worked as a clerk for his father, a solicitor, until moving to London in 1889 to pursue a literary career. He moved to Paris in 1903 and in 1907 married French actress Marguerite Soulié. Bennett was deeply influenced by the French realist novelists and is best known for writing realist novels set in Staffordshire. Bennett also had considerable success as a playwright, having five plays produced on the London stage from 1908 to 1913. Cather wrote approvingly of his co-authored play Milestones in “Plays of Real Life” (McClure’s March 1913), noting its overlapping theme with his novel The Old Wives’ Tale (1913).
Oliver, Mrs. Zoë Akins's acquaintance. Zoê Akins wrote to Cather about meeting a Mrs. Oliver in California in 1912, but no further information is known about her.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"The Bohemian Girl," McClure's Magazine (August 1912) by Willa Cather
O Pioneers! (1913) by Willa Cather
"Prairie Spring," McClure's Magazine (December 1912) by Willa Cather
McClure's Magazine
Milestones: A Play in Three Acts (1912) by Arnold Bennett
