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 am running off to Boston5 for a week with Mrs. Fields6, and before I start for the train I must again remind you that I am counting on your stopping with me a few days–as long as you can–when you land. And I want to add that although I am counting on it a whole lot, more and more every week, I shant be snippy or 'feminine' if, when I meet you at the boat, you tell me that you are going to chuck me and go right through to Boston. So you must not feel that you “ought” to stop in New York2 with W. S. C. etc., and that that is one thing more between you and getting settled. Don’t, please, let me be an ought. I am writing this now because, as I turn toward Boston, the number of people I’ve promised to visit, stare me in the face. And I’m not going to visit them. It’s outrageous in one to let people they like become a tax. So I write to beg you not to let me be a “tax”; to tell you that I am tremendously hoping that you can stay awhile with me, and that if you can’t you are not to fidget one second. You won’t have to “get past” me to the 42nd St station. You know what I mean.
Houghton Mifflin changed their plans five days ago and decided to bring “Pioneers”7 out in June8. I read the whole lot of proofs in three days, and
this time it seemed pretty good again. I must tell you
about the Swede girl9 who posed for the
frontispiece10. And Fremstad11, wonderful Fremstad! New countries are
easy to reach; but to get find a new kind of human
creature, to get inside an a new skin–that’s always
finest sport there is, isn’t it? Farrar12 is
good fun, too–Manon13 after Isolde14. So, you see, I’ve much to tell
you.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0258.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0258
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, handwritten on recto and verso of each leaf. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant1
- Date letter was written
- April 28 [1913]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Literary and Historical Manuscripts (MA 1602 (31)), Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
O Pioneers! was published 28 June 1913.
Though this person has not been identified, a short syndicated article, likely written by Houghton Mifflin's publicity department, said she was "from the very part of the country where the scene of the story is laid," and that after graduating from a "western university" she came to New York to work as a suffrage advocate. After reading Cather's "The Bohemian Girl" in McClure's, the woman sought Cather out, started a "cordial friendship," and Cather selected her to model for the illustration.
An image of Alexandra Bergson by illustrator Clarence F. Underwood used as a frontispiece
of O Pioneers! from its original publication in 1913.
A central character from L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost, which has been adapted into multiple ballets and operas, most famously the opera Manon by Jules Massenet. Geraldine Farrar was famous for her portrayal of Manon in the opera.
An Irish princess and central character from the legend of Tristan and Isolde, which has many versions. Cather likely was thinking of the famous portrayal of Isolde in Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde (1865).
Person Annotations
Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley (1881-1965). American journalist and
author. Born and raised in Winchester, MA, a suburb of Boston,
Elizabeth Sergeant graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1903. In 1910,
Pauline Goldmark sent her to Cather at McClure’s
Magazine with a proposed article, published as “Toilers of the
Tenements,” and Cather and Sergeant became lifelong friends. In 1914
Sergeant became one of the original contributors to the New Republic. While on assignment in France in 1917 she was
injured by a land mine; her injury and recuperation were the subject of Shadow-Shapes: Journal of a Wounded Woman (1920). She
moved to New Mexico in 1920 and became involved with the Taos artists colony
and advocated for Native American rights, but her work frequently took her
back to New York City. She included Cather in her collection of portraits of
prominent Americans, Fire under the Andes (1927).
Sergeant studied with Carl Jung and Toni Woolf in Zurich, Switzerland, from
1929 to 1931. When she returned to the U.S. she sold her house in New Mexico
and settled in New York City, writing many magazine articles about authors
and psychological topics. She later moved to Rockland County, NY. Cather’s
letters to Sergeant comment frequently on both her own and Sergeant’s
writing and testify to a strong and lively friendship maintained despite
Sergeant's being a committed reformer and far to the left of Cather
politically and culturally. Sergeant’s Willa Cather: A
Memoir (1953) includes extensive paraphrases of Cather’s letters to
her.
Fields, Annie Adams (1835-1915). Literary hostess, author, and social
reformer. At age 20, Annie Adams married James T. Fields,
partner in the Boston publishing house of Ticknor & Fields. Both before
and after her husband’s death in 1881, Fields often entertained important
American, British, and European authors at her home at 148 Charles Street in
Boston, MA. After James’ death, Sarah Orne Jewett, whose books were
published by Ticknor & Fields, began sharing Annie’s homes at 148
Charles Street and Manchester-on-the-Sea, MA. Cather met Fields in Boston in
1908, a meeting Cather described in "The House on Charles Street," an essay
reviewing Memories of a Hostess (a volume of
selections from Fields' journals, 1922). A revised version of this essay,
retitled "148 Charles Street," appeared in Not Under
Forty (1936). After Jewett’s death in 1909, Fields edited The Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), which
included several letters to Cather. Fearing that 148 Charles Street would
become a museum after her death, Fields requested that it be torn down.
Fremstad, Olive (1871-1951). Swedish-American opera singer.
Born in Sweden, Ann Olivia Rundquist was adopted by a
Scandinavian-American couple, the Fremstads, who raised her first in
Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway, and then in Minnesota. She moved to New York
City to study piano in 1890 and then to Germany to study voice with Lilli
Lehmann. After a successful career in Europe as a mezzo-soprano, she made
her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1903, where she specialized in
singing soprano roles in operas by Richard Wagner. Willa Cather first met
Fremstad in 1913 while researching “Three American Singers,” an article for
McClure’s Magazine in which Cather clearly
prefers Fremstad as “the most interesting kind of American” over Geraldine
Farrar and Louise Homer. Through 1916 Cather and Fremstad were in close and
regular contact in person and through letters, although Cather’s letters to
Fremstad have not been located and their friendship evidently cooled.
Fremstad inspired many aspects of the story, personality, and career of Thea
Kronborg, heroine of The Song of the Lark (1915), and
she approved of the novel, although Cather did not want readers to identify
the character too closely with her. Fremstad married and divorced twice.
During the period Cather and Fremstad were in regular contact Fremstad lived
as a couple with Mary Watkins (later Cushing) who, after Fremstad’s death,
published a biography of her, The Rainbow Bridge
(1954).
Farrar, Geraldine (1882-1967). American opera singer. Born in
Melrose, MA, to a professional baseball player father and an amateur singer
mother, Geraldine Farrar began formal study of voice in Boston in 1894 and
then studied in New York City from 1897 to 1899, when she, accompanied by
her parents, left for study in Europe. Her operatic career began in earnest
in 1900, and she made her American debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1906
in Roméo et Juliette. As a regular opera goer in New
York City, Cather often heard Farrar sing at the Met, and she met her when
researching “Three American Singers: Louise Homer, Geraldine Farrar, Olive
Fremstad” (McClure’s Magazine December 1913). Cather
comments on Farrar’s noted talent for acting, as well as singing, her
operatic roles, and her indebtedness to French actress Sarah Bernhardt, who
took Farrar under her wing in Paris. Elements of Farrar’s personality and
career may have inspired aspects of Kitty Ayreshire, featured in Cather’s
stories “A Gold Slipper” (1917) and “Scandal” (1919). Farrar retired from
the operatic stage in 1922 but continued her regular concert touring in her
personal Pullman rail car, bringing operatic music to small towns and
working class audiences. She also acted in silent film versions of operas
and was a popular recording artist. References in Cather’s letters suggest
that Cather saw Farrar socially in New York City and may have corresponded
with her, but no letters are known.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
O Pioneers! (1913) by Willa Cather
