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 |
My French girl3 has been ill for a week, and I have been so busy carrying Antonia4 along with one hand and serving the kitchen gods with the other that I have delayed sending you the contract5. I return it herewith, however, and thank you for not trimming my royalties6.
Faithfully Willa CatherH. J. Smith's7 play8 is a great success, and very narrowly misses being a really fine play. Some splendid things in it, but the last act is pretty poor.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0409.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0409
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Ferris Greenslet1
- Date letter was written
- [February 8, 1918]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The date of the letter is established by Ferris Greenslet's letter of 30 January 1918 forwarding the contract for My Ántonia and Cather's explanation of the delay in returning it (8 February 1918 was the second Friday after 30 January 1918).
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944 (MSAm1925), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Individual Annotations
On 30 January 1918 Greenslet sent the contract for My Ántonia, noting that they and many other publishers had been reducing royalty rates because of "difficult and expensive conditions of manufactore and distribution" during the war, but they were not cutting Cather's royalties because the firm strongly supported the book.
Cather's contract with Houghton Mifflin for The Song of the Lark (1915) set her royalties at 15% on trade-list (retail) price for each copy sold up to 25,000 copies and 20% on copies over 25,000. Her contract for My Antonia, dated 25 January 1918, set royalties at 10% for each copy up to 5,000, 15% from 5,000 to 25,000, and 20% above 25,000.
Person Annotations
Greenslet, Ferris (1875-1959). American editor and writer.
Born in Glens Falls, NY, Ferris Greenslet earned a BA (1897) from
Wesleyan University and a PhD (1900) from Columbia University. He served as
associate editor at the Atlantic Monthly from 1902 to
1907, and married Ella Stoothoff Hulst in 1903; they had two children,
Marguerite (born 1904) and George (born 1906). As an author he specialized
in biography. He became literary editor at Houghton Mifflin, the Boston
publisher of the Atlantic, c. 1908 and was socially
and professionally acquainted with Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett,
who may have introduced him to Cather. He evidently solicited Cather to
submit Alexander’s Bridge (1912), her first published
novel, to Houghton Mifflin. In 1910, when Greenslet became editor in chief
of the trade department, Roger Scaife divided his shares as a director of
the company with him, and the two presented themselves to authors as
partners, with Scaife handling book advertising and format and Greenslet
negotiating contracts and supervising editing; when Greenslet was absent
from the office, Scaife handled correspondence with Cather. Greenslet became
a director of Houghton Mifflin in 1919 and manager of the trade department
in 1933. Cather left Houghton Mifflin as a publisher for Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc., because she became dissatisfied with the production and advertising of
her books. However, she remained on cordial terms with Greenslet and
undertook several projects for him after her departure. Her extant letters
to him constitute one of the largest groups to a single correspondent.
Bourda, Joséphine Marie Bernardine Brun (1892-1959). Cather’s maid. Raised in Lourdes in the Pyrénées region of France, Joséphine’s father Jean-Marie Brun ran a restaurant. In 1909 she married Alphonse Bourda, and they had two children, Marie, born 1910, and Clémentine, born 1912. In 1913 Joséphine, Alphonse, and Joséphine’s father immigrated to the U.S., leaving Marie and Clémentine behind with relatives. Alphonse and Joséphine’s third child, Jeanette, was born in New York City in late 1913. Soon after, Joséphine found work cooking and keeping house for Willa Cather and Edith Lewis in their Five Bank Street apartment. In 1919 the Bourda family was reunited in New York and Joséphine stopped working, but by late 1921, she was back working half days until sometime after 1925. She resumed working for Cather and Lewis in 1932 when they moved to a new apartment at 570 Park Avenue, but in 1935, she and her husband decided to return to France because of his failing health. Cather considered Joséphine a personal friend and praised her as “an artist in her way” (#0563). Cather and Bourda evidently corresponded after her return to France but their letters have not surfaced. She died in the village of Saint Pé de Bigorre.
Smith, Harry James (1880-1918). American playwright. Born and raised in Connecticut, Harry Smith received a BA from Williams College (1898) and MA from Harvard University (1905). After a year teaching at Oberlin and a year on the editorial staff of the Atlantic Monthly, he worked independently as a writer in multiple genres; several of his plays were produced in New York City. He died in a train and automobile collision in British Columbia, where he was collecting sphagnum moss for use in wound dressings.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
Little Teacher, The : A Comedy Drama in Four Acts (1918) by H. J. Smith
