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 tell me, in deepest confidence, whether you consider Mr. Llona3 a straight and responsible person in business affairs––that is, if you happen to know anything about that side of him.
I am but lately home2 from a wonderful summer abroad, and am hoping a good wind will blow you this way before the winter is much older.
Yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0519.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0519
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Fanny Butcher1
- Date letter was written
- December 2 [1920]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The conjectured year reflects Cather's travel itinerary in 1920, which included a long trip to France.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Fanny Butcher Papers, 1830-1984 (Midwest MS Butcher), Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Person Annotations
Bokum, Frances Amanda Butcher (1888-1987) (“Fanny”).
American newspaper critic and bookstore owner. Born in Fredonia,
KS, Butcher moved to Chicago, IL, as a child. She received an A.A. from
Lewis Institute in 1908 and a BA from the University of Chicago in 1910. In
1911, Floyd Dell of the Chicago Evening Post assigned
her to review Alexander’s Bridge (1912). Cather wrote
the anonymous reviewer care of the Post, beginning
their correspondence and friendship. From 1913 until her retirement in 1963,
Butcher wrote for the Chicago Tribune, becoming
literary editor in 1922. She ran Fanny Butcher Books in Chicago from 1919
until 1927, when she sold it to Doubleday. Cather frequently saw Butcher
when she changed trains in Chicago and closely followed Butcher’s reviews of
her works, often writing to her about them. She also relied on Butcher’s
knowledge of the book business and particularly book distribution in the
Midwest. Their extant correspondence begins in 1920, although in her memoir
Many Lives—One Love (1972), Butcher
paraphrases earlier letters. Butcher married Richard Drummond Bokum in 1935.
Llona, Victor Manuel (1886-1953). Peruvian-French writer and translator. Born in Lima, Peru, Victor Llona was raised and educated in Paris, France, where he entered the cosmopolitan café scene as a teenager. In 1906 he moved with his parents to Chicago, IL, returned to Paris in 1913 but left for New York City at the outbreak of World War I. On his return to France he became friends with both French and American expatriate writers and launched a career translating dozens of American novels into French. His translation of Cather’s My Ántonia (1918), Mon Antonia (1924), was one of his earliest translations. Before his return to France he married Florence Nelson of Chicago. They had two children, Doris and Eric, and his wife collaborated with him on some of his translations. The couple later divorced.
Place Annotations
