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 |
Will you please have a cut of that photograph3 with the hat upon, and the striped vest across, sent to the writer of the enclosed letter at once? And please ask the person you delegate to send it not to forget.
Last winter I forwarded to Houghton Mifflin a
similar request4 from the Philadelphia
Record5 or Press. Three weeks later the man6 wrote me he had to publish his article without photograph, as
none had ever reached him. Since then I have been sending photographs to such applicants,; but I've sent
my last one, Hollinger7
(the photographer) is ill and won won't promise anything within ten days.
So won't you please help me out this time and send this woman a cut, seeing that the cut is sent off at once, or it will be of no use.
Faithfully yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0493.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0493
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only
- Person to whom letter was written
- Ferris Greenslet1
- Date letter was written
- January 20 [1920]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by corresponding letters to Cather from Houghton Mifflin staff.
- 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
Cather is referring to this 1915 image by Hollinger Co.
See #0441
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.
Kinsley, Peter Augustus (1868-1947). American newspaper critic. Born in Lock Haven, PA, and raised in Renovo PA, by age twenty-nine Peter Kinsley was publisher of the Renovo Evening News. He became literary editor of the Philadelphia Record c. 1908, holding that position until 1931, when he returned to Renovo and worked in local government. He died in Renovo. Kinsley praised O Pioneers! (1913) as “a story of abundant merit,” and Cather was frustrated by Houghton Mifflin’s failure to send him publicity material when My Ántonia (1918) was published.
Hollinger, William M. (1854-1936). American photographer. Born in Ohio to German immigrant parents, William Hollinger operated portrait photography studios in Urbana, IL, in the 1870s and in partnership with Jospeph M. Appleton in Dayton, OH, in the 1880s. By the 1890s he had established a photographic studio in New York City, where he was known for high quality work and technical innovation. Hollinger photographed Cather in 1915.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Philadelphia Record
