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 |
Mr. Knopf3 brought in a copy of the Yale Review4 yesterday and showed me what a fine generous thing you had done for me5 in that number. I am the more pleased because the commendation of no other person would mean as much in Red Cloud6, where you and your work are much beloved, and where I am always eager to "give satisfaction. They have no opinion of 'critics' in general there, but they have confidence in you, and an expression like that from you will please them more than anything else could. The Red Cloud public is ready now to hear a good word, for after "Antonia"7 they really came round, and said "yes, it was exactly like ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩that; that is the way we remember it."
Are we never, I wonder, to come together for a talk again? There are so many, many things I would like to ask you about and tell you about. I have such a far-flung family that I am kept racing about in the West when I am not at my desk on Bank Street8. But won't you write me before you come to New York2 next time, so that I can get at you? If we could get an afternoon away from the rest of the world, I think we'd both get a good deal out of it. Lucy Allen9 came in here one day and said she'd get me in touch with your mother10 sometime. I was pleased to see Lucy, but she brought along an up-and-coming club woman who spoiled the fun.
I'm always wonderfully glad to please you, Dorothy. The first letter you wrote me about "O Pioneers!"11
long ago was the most helpful "hand-up" I had had, and I've always kept it and the
other generous letters you've written me about my books. You know, better than
anyone else what a long way I had to go to get—anywhere. And you know, too,
the difficulties of the road. It is strange to come at last to wr write with calm j
enjoyment and a certain ease, after such storm and struggle and shrieking forever
off the key. I am able to keep the pitch now, usually, and that is the thing I'm
really thankful for. But Lord—what a lot of life one uses up chasing 'bright Medusas'12, doesn't one? I think we might get
together and compare our scars, like doughboys13. I'm not at all fierce anymore—unless you bring a
clubwoman!
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0534.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0534
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, handwritten on recto only of first leaf and on recto and verso of second leaf.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Dorothy Canfield Fisher1
- Date letter was written
- March 21 [1921]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by the publication of Canfield's "Among New Books: Some Books of Short Stories" in the April 1921 Yale Review.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Dorothy Canfield Collection (mss-975), University of Vermont, Bailey-Howe Library, Burlington, VT
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.
Popular term for American soldiers serving in World War I.
Person Annotations
Fisher, Dorothy Canfield (1879-1958). American novelist; educational
and social reformer. Dorothy Canfield and Willa Cather became
friends in 1891 at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where Canfield's
father, James Canfield, had come to serve as Chancellor. The family moved to
Columbus, OH, in 1895 when James Canfield assumed the presidency of Ohio
State University, from which Dorothy graduated in 1899. She then followed
her father to New York City, where he became Librarian of Columbia
University, and she pursued graduate study in Romance Languages at the
University of Paris and Columbia, from which she earned a PhD in 1904. On
Cather’s first trip to Europe, she spent time in France and England with
Canfield, including an awkward visit to the home of poet A.E. Housman.
Cather derived the central character of “The Profile” (1907) from Canfield’s
friend Evelyn Osborne, whom Cather had met in Europe. Cather and Canfield
became estranged for more than a decade because Canfield objected to the
story’s planned inclusion in The Troll Garden (1905).
Canfield married John Redwood Fisher in 1907, and their primary residence
was Arlington, VT. Canfield Fisher had spent 1916-1918 in France engaging in
war relief work, and Cather’s consultation with her about the accuracy of
her depiction of wartime France in One of Ours (1922)
led them to reconcile. In 1925 Canfield Fisher became a founding member of
the Book of the Month Club selection committee. She published her novels
(most of them very popular) under the name Dorothy Canfield but her various
nonfiction works as Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
Knopf, Alfred A. (1892-1984). President of New York
publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Knopf received his BA from
Columbia University in New York City in 1912 and founded Alfred Knopf, Inc.,
in 1915 with his future wife Blanche Wolf. They married in 1916, and their
son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Cather chose him as her publisher
beginning with Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920) and
One of Ours (1922), partly because she was
dissatisfied with the promotion of her books by Houghton Mifflin but also
because she recognized the high quality of Knopf's books, as well as what
she regarded as his intelligent advertising. Knopf was noted for publishing
the work of leading European and South American writers in translation, as
well as original works. Knopf and Cather’s extensive correspondence
testifies to their mutual professional respect and to what also became an
important personal friendship.
Smart, Lucy Allen (1877-1960). American educator. Born in Steubenville, OH, Lucy Allen received her A.B. and A.M. degrees from the Ohio State University in 1897 and 1899 while James H. Canfield was its president. After working as a librarian at the University for a couple of years, she married newspaper editor and writer David Smart in 1901, and the couple had two children. Starting in 1925, Lucy Allen Smart worked at the Kew-Forest School in Forest Hills, NY, serving as Dean from 1941-1956, and was active in her community as a speaker, columnist, and volunteer. Smart was a friend of the Canfield family, and through them developed an acquaintance with Cather.
Canfield, Flavia Camp (1844-1930). Clubwoman; painter; mother of Dorothy Canfield. Flavia Camp was born in Wisconsin, although her family came from Vermont. She was an early graduate of the University of Wisconsin and taught school and art before marrying James H. Canfield in 1873. Their son James A. Canfield was born in 1874, and their daughter Dorothy in 1879. A painter, Flavia studied in Europe, taking her daughter with her on several occasions. She was an activist and social reformer as well, believing in the power of women to effect change by organizing. She was one of the founders of the University of Nebraska Women’s Club, as well as the Ohio State Women’s Club and many others, and was president of the Ohio Federation of Women’s Clubs. Late in her life she wrote Around the World at Eighty (1926), an account of a world tour she took at that age.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Yale Review
"Among New Books: Some Books of Short Stories," Yale Review (April 1921) by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
O Pioneers! (1913) by Willa Cather
Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920) by Willa Cather
