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 |
CARTE POSTALE "TUCK"
No 113
Miss Mary
Jewett1
South
Berwick5
Maine
U. S.
A.
PARIS R. P. DEPART2
26 VII 1920
24
Taken from Manchester Mondo. By Sir Henry Montague, earl
of Manchester. London; 1902
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0512.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0512
- Contents
- Document is one leaf with image of Tuileries Garden in Paris, France, on recto. Handwritten message on verso of postcard.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Mary Rice Jewett1
- Date letter was written
- July 26 [1920]
- Place letter was written
- Paris, Île-de-France, France2
- Location of original letter
- Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence (MS AM 1743), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Person Annotations
Jewett, Mary Rice (1847-1930). Sarah Orne Jewett’s sister. Born in Exeter, NH, to Dr. Theodore Herman Jewett and Caroline Frances Perry Jewett, Mary was the older sister of Sarah Orne Jewett. They both attended Berwick Academy in Berwick, ME, and as adults they continued to live together in the family home in South Berwick, where Mary was active in a local women’s club and charitable work. On Sarah’s death, Mary and Annie Adams Fields became co-executors of Sarah’s literary estate. Cather’s friendship with Mary seems to date primarily from this period after Sarah’s death, and Cather made several visits to Mary at the Jewett family home in Maine. In 1924, with Mary Jewett’s approval, Ferris Greenslet of Houghton Mifflin asked Cather to select and write an introduction to Sarah Jewett’s stories. Shortly thereafter, Burton Rascoe reported critical remarks by Cather about Sarah Jewett’s works and the Jewett family in his “Bookman’s Day Book” column in the New York Tribune. Mary read these remarks as reprinted in the Boston Transcript, was offended, and sought to have Cather removed as editor of her sister’s works. However, Cather and Greenslet persuaded her to reverse this decision (Cather’s letters pleading her case have not been located). Mary Jewett died in South Berwick, and her nephew Theodore Jewett Eastman succeeded to the executorship of Sarah Jewett’s literary estate.
Barlow-Brewster, Achsah (1878-1945). Expatriate American painter.
Born in New Haven, CT, Achsah Brewster graduated in 1902 from Smith
College, where Edith Lewis had become her roommate in 1899, inaugurating a
long friendship. After college, Achsah moved to New York City to study
painting at the Art Students League and the New York School of Art. After
she returned from a year of study in France, fellow student (and later poet)
Vachel Lindsay introduced her to Earl Brewster. She may have met Willa
Cather as early as 1904, when Cather, visiting New York from Pittsburgh,
stayed with Edith Lewis on Washington Square. In 1910, she and Earl Brewster
married and moved to Europe, returning to the U.S. only once, in 1923. From
1910 through 1935, they lived in various locations in France (where their
daughter Harwood was born in 1912) and in Italy (where they met D. H.
Lawrence and his wife Frieda in 1921), while also traveling widely in Europe
and to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and India. Edith Lewis visited Achsah and Earl in
Ravello, Italy, in 1914 and 1920 and in Cyr-sur-Mer, France, in 1930 (with
Cather) and 1935. When Earl, Achsah, and Harwood moved to Paris in the early
1920s, they became friend Isabelle McClung Hambourg and Jan Hambourg. In
1935, Achsah and Earl moved to the Himalayan region of India, where she died
ten years later after a long illness.
Brewster, Earl (1878-1957). Expatriate American painter. Born
in Chagrin Falls, OH, Earl Brewster attended the Cleveland Institute of Art
for a year before moving to New York City in 1899 to study at the Art
Students League and the New York School of Art. He married fellow painter
Achsah Barlow in 1910. They immediately moved to Europe, returning to the
U.S. only once, in 1923. From 1910 through 1935, Earl and Achsah lived in
France (where their daughter Harwood was born in 1912) and Italy (where they
met D. H. Lawrence in 1921), while traveling widely in Europe and to Ceylon
(Sri Lanka) and India. Edith Lewis visited Achsah and Earl in Ravello,
Italy, in 1914 and 1920 and in Cyr-sur-Mer, France, in 1930 (with Cather)
and 1935. When Earl, Achsah, and Harwood moved to Paris in the early 1920s,
they became friend Isabelle McClung Hambourg and Jan Hambourg. Earl had
begun studying eastern religions early in his life, including the Vedanta
school of Hindu religious philosophy, and he incorporated Buddhist
iconography into his paintings. In 1935, the Brewsters moved to the
Himalayan region of India, where he died more than two decades later.
Place Annotations
