Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 |
I'm never going to let you shed your life-blood in my cause again—damn the trade, I surely wont kill my friends for it. I had a perfectly delightful stay in Chicago3—especially the last half-hour of it. Are you aware that I got only about thirty minutes of you, alone and undismayed? You must do better than that by me next time, please. The other people are very nice, of course, but if I prefer seeing you, why shouldn't I be indulged? There will be a next time. When I like things I always repeat them—which assertion has rather a double meaning for the moment.
Yours W. S. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0559.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0559
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Fanny Butcher 1
- Date letter was written
- [November 5, 1921]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The date penciled on the letter, perhaps by Fanny Butcher, is substantiated by other letters documenting that Cather had stopped in Chicago in early November 1921 on her way from Red Cloud, NE, to New York City (see, e.g. #0558 and #0560).
- Place letter was written
- unknown place2
- 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.
Place Annotations
