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 |
TORONTO2 TELEPHONE
NORTH 6127 April 14th Dear Mr. Lewis1:
My father3 has sent me an Omaha4 paper5 quoting some very fine and generous things you said about me6 in your lecture there. That you have read me and like me would in itself be good news enough,—but this downright friendly push from your strong hand, is something that touches and pleases me more than I can say. I would not be at all surprised if your vigorous talk did more to make Nebraska7 people read me than my own books have done. So I've to thank you for helping me to get the attention of my own folks out there. But I've to thank you much more for letting me know that you like my books yourself. I would rather have the respect of a few (about three) strong, straight-hitting young writers like yourself than anything else that can come out of the writing business. That's the truth, and I am therefore very gratefully yours,
Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0539.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0539
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Sinclair Lewis 1
- Date letter was written
- April 14 [1921]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by the Omaha Society of Fine Arts hosting Sinclair Lewis as a lecturer in 1921.
- Place letter was written
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Sinclair Lewis Papers (YCAL MSS 268), Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT
Individual Annotations
On 8 April 1921, the Omaha Society of Fine Arts hosted Sinclair Lewis as a lecturer at the Hotel Fontenelle. Lewis identified Cather as "Nebraska's foremost citizen" and "tacitly extracted a silent pledge from his audience of 500 that before a fortnight had elapsed they would own the four books written by this former Nebraska woman."
Person Annotations
Lewis, Sinclair (1885-1951). American novelist. Born
in Sauke Centre, MN, Sinclair Lewis graduated from Yale University in 1908.
Although he published short stories and several novels in the teens, he
achieved critical and popular success with Main
Street (1920), which satirized Midwestern provincialism. On a 1921
lecture tour, he regularly praised Cather’s work. He continued with a string
of popular and critical successes, including Babbitt
(1922), Arrowsmith (1925) (for which he declined the
Pulitzer Prize for fiction), Mantrap (1926), and Elmer Gantry (1927). Even though he depicted One of Ours (1922) as a failure in his New York Evening Post review, Cather invited him to
tea and said she was not “a particle sore at him” (#0624). Although they
infrequently saw each other in person, they remained on good terms, and when
Lewis was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature,
he praised Cather in his acceptance speech. Lewis was married and divorced
twice, first to Grace Livingston Hegger and then to Dorothy Thompson. Later,
he lived with Rosemary Marcella Powers, whom Cather met. Lewis’s later
career was marred by his alcoholism, which led to his death in Rome,
Italy.
Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father.
Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back
Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers
who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War.
He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters,
in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and
Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where
various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the
county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an
insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe,
Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and
John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very
warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially
enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week
after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of
heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"Lewis Praises the Work of Nebraska Authoress," Omaha World Herald (April 9, 1921)
