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 |
February 28 Dear Mr. Greenslet1:
Did you get some copy4 and two drawings from me this week? I sent them by express on Saturday.
I detest to have to tell you that I've been ill for two weeks; and my good French girl5 has been ill for a month now. Unexpected difficulties in housekeeping and getting a temporary knock-out in health have put me terribly behind in my work. I've just been going over the notes of the last third of the book. They are better than I remembered—I think they are much the best part of it. They seem rather too good to be slurred over and spoiled by haste.
Now what about it? Tell me honestly what you think. I feel almost sure that I can get a considerable wad of copy to you by March
15th, and I
feel almost sure that I can get it all to you by April
1st. But it
will be a crowd; and isn't that too late for spring
publication anyhow?
Would it be better now to let the book go over until the Autumn? I hate to suggest
it, but I think that would be better than crowding it along. It's the kind of story
that has to be pretty carefully written, after all. The proof ought not to take much
work—I've been careful about the copy—but there are some things that
only type decides for [illegible]one. I've been fairly industrious, and I've pushed the thing
along as fast as I could. But writing is a slow business, and that's all there is
to
it. There's no sufficient reason why this story should take two winters; I feel as
humble as possible about it, but there is no getting around the fact that it
has.
Please let me know if you think it would be better to wait until fall now, or if
you
still want me to try to get through by the end of March. I know I couldn't get finish before that. Even if you agree with me and
decide to defer publication, I will get the copy along to you as fast as I can and
even at a relaxed pace I would probably finish early in April. Let me have your
wisest thoughts on this. I'm fairly perplexed myself.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0410.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0410
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, handwritten on recto of each leaf only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Ferris Greenslet1
- Date letter was written
- February 28 [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
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
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.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
