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 |
Can you arrange to motor out to the Shattuck Inn3, Jaffrey4, between August 17th and 31st? I arrive there the first day of August, but will have several guests from New York5 the first part of the month.
The tent6 which I used to rent
there is worn out. I want another to pitch in Professor James Robinson's7 meadow, and I don't want to go
into Boston8 to buy one. Would you
be kind enough to go to the U. S. Tent and Awning Company, or some other
company that sells cheap hunting tents, and ask them to mail their catalogue
to me at once at the Shattuck Inn? I want
hope to find the catalogue awaiting
me when I get there, if possible, as it will take several days to get the
tent delivered after I order it. I have been packing Claude9 for transit today, and I find there are
a hundred thousand words of him10,- about one half, or perhaps two-thirds, of the first writing. I want to push it ahead
before I go West, as I am writing Smith11 I will give him some stories next winter,- better
ones, I hope, than the very sloppy
one12 in the current Century13. I don't like to write short stories, but I need the
money.
I enclose a letter from Mrs. Norris14,
which I will ask you to send back to me at the Shattuck Inn. It's a fine,
generous bouquet for an inordinately popular author to writ hand a monotonously unpopular one. I
should think it might pay to send her a copy of "Antonia"15M Such
people are good advertisers.
Please don't forget the tent catalogue!
Faithfully Willa Cather ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0470.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0470
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Ferris Greenslet1
- Date letter was written
- July 28 [1919]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by corresponding letters from Houghton Mifflin staff.
- Place letter was written
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Harvard University, Houghton Library Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944 (MSAm1925), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Individual Annotations
Shattuck Inn (Jaffrey, NH): Hotel built in 1910 in Jaffrey, N,H owned and operated by E. C. Shattuck until his death in February 1933, when operation was taken over by his daughter, Eleanor Shattuck Austermann, and her husband George Austermann. Cather stayed at the Shattuck Inn many times, often with Edith Lewis, finding it a useful place to work. In 1947, Cather wrote of the Shattuck Inn: “I have never found any place where I could work in such peace and happiness as in the little rooms up in the top of the Shattuck Inn” (#1748).
Photograph of Cather standing in front of her rented tent in Jaffrrey, NH, in 1917.
Philip L. and Helen Cather Southwick Collection, Archives Special Collections, University
of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
Cather is referring to One of Ours by the name of its protagonist, Claude Wheeler.
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.
Robinson, James Harvey (1863-1936). American historian. Born in Bloomington, IL, James Robinson earned his MA from Harvard University in 1888 and his PhD from Freiburg University in 1890. A specialist in European intellectual history, he first taught at the University of Pennsylvania and then for 24 years at Columbia University. Robinson advocated a progressive approach to history and was associated with “New History.” In 1919 he left Columbia to establish the New School for Social Research. Robinson wrote, revised, and translated a number of books and textbooks. Robinson owned High Mowing (also known as Woodbine Farm) near Jaffrey, NH, where in 1917 Willa Cather pitched a tent to write parts of My Ántonia (1918).
Smith, Thomas Robert (1880-1942) (“T. R.”). American book and magazine editor. Born in Phillipsburg, NJ, son of English immigrants Robert and Margaret Smith, T. R. Smith married Lucy M. Blemly in 1905; they had one daughter, Doris Smith. By 1911, T. R. Smith was manager for publishers Moffat, Yard, & Co.; from 1914 to 1920 he was managing editor of Century Magazine. In 1920 he joined publishers Boni & Liveright, becoming editor-in-chief and working with writers such as Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson. In 1930 Smith and Arthur Pell took over the publishing house following Horace Liveright’s retirement. After declaring bankruptcy in 1930, Smith reorganized the company yet again and changed its name to the Liveright Publishing Corporation. Cather published several short stories in the Century while Smith was editor there, including “The Bookkeeper’s Wife” (1916), “Ardessa” (1918), and “Scandal” (1919).
Norris, Kathleen Thompson (1880-1966). American writer. Born
in San Francisco, CA, Kathleen became responsible for her younger siblings
when their parents died in 1899. She began writing short stories while
working at various jobs. In 1909 she married Charles Gilman Norris, younger
brother of novelist Frank Norris, and moved to New York City; they returned
to California in 1919. Her stories began appearing in magazines in 1910, and
her first novel, Mother, in 1911. Her books quickly
became bestsellers; some were made into films and others dramatized on
radio. Norris wrote a letter praising Cather’s work, a gesture which Cather
appreciated although she noted that Norris’s book sales were much larger
than her own.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
One of Ours (1922) by Willa Cather
"Scandal," Century Magazine (August 1919) by Willa Cather
Century Magazine
My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
