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 |
Yes, please do send me the copies4 of the Mirror5. They have not
reached me as yet. I resume residence at
on
Bank street6 February 12, after a week
in Washington7, and hope to see you there
before the winter is much older. I leave Pittsburgh2 February 6th.
The novel8 is almost done, nearly 200,000 blooming words, if you please!
Yours W. S. C. February 1stInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0293.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0293
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins 1
- Date letter was written
- February 1 [1915]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather's reference to completing The Song of the Lark (1915).
- Place letter was written
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Zoë Akins Papers, 1878-1959 (mssAU 1-5456), Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
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.
5 Bank Street (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis beginning in 1912, located in Greenwich Village in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Subway construction forced Cather and Lewis to relocate in 1927.
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’.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"In the Shadow of Parnassus: A Critical Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry," Reedy's Mirror (February 19 to August 13, 1915) by Zoë Akins
Reedy's Mirror
The Song of the Lark (1915) by Willa Cather
