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 |
You have spoiled me, so that now every time I write a book I shall expect a nice letter from you. I’m particularly glad you like the last one4, which seemed another daring experiment when I embarked upon it—all in such a low key and so little action. Yet any attempt to speed it up would have quite spoiled it for me. I am surprised that so many people do like it, in spite of the fact that it omits almost every single thing that is usually supposed to be necessary in a story.
It is good news to hear that you are coming to New York2. Please telephone me when you come so that we can arrange for a visit. I enjoyed Mr. Seibel’s5 call and was glad to see your sister6. I also enjoyed the pre-historic romance7 Mr. Seibel left with me, and have been on the point of writing him about it several times.
I hope to see you soon, so no more now, except to thank you so heartily for your good letter. I’m glad you got a laugh out of Jimmy’s8 orgy of sentiment at Camille9!
Faithfully Willa CatherI’m so glad you liked Jake and Otto10, too.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0449.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0449
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Helen Hiller Seibel1
- Date letter was written
- February 2 [1919]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Both books referenced here, My Ántonia and George Seibel's The Fall, were published in 1918, indicating that this letter was written in 1919.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
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.
There is insufficient evidence to establish which of Helen Hiller Seibel’s four sisters, Bertha (b. 1873), Emma (b. 1875), Minnie (b. 1879), and Alma (b. 1892), visited Willa Cather in 1919.
James Burden, narrator of My Ántonia.
Jake Marpole and Otto Fuchs, two farmhands working on the Burden's farm during Jim's childhood in My Ántonia.
Person Annotations
Seibel, Helen Hiller (1873-1971). Cather’s Pittsburgh friend.
Born in Pennsylvania to German immigrant parents, Helen Hiller
married George Seibel on 6 September 1894. Their one child, Erna, was born
in 1897. Cather met the couple through George Seibel’s work for the Home Monthly, which Cather was editing. Soon the
three were meeting frequently at the Seibel home, studying and translating
French and German literature. Cather read her own poetry and short stories
to them as well. The Seibel house at 114 S. 17th Street on Pittsburgh’s
South Side served as the model for the home of Alfred Engelhardt and his
uncle in “Double Birthday” (1925).
Seibel, George (1873-1958). American literary and drama critic.
Cather met Seibel and his wife Helen while working as editor of the
Home Monthly in Pittsburgh in 1896 and 1897. They
regularly studied French and German together, Cather read her work in
progress to him, and George reviewed April Twilights
(1903) in the Pittsburgh Gazette.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
The Fall: Being a True Account of What Happened in Paradise, with a New Interpretation of Sacred History, Vindicating Snakes and Apples (1918) by George Seibel
Camille (1852) by Alexandre Dumas fils
