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 |
I feel ashamed that I have not yet replied to y your
very kind letter, and must ask your charity. The fact is, my plans for the summer are very uncertain. Just now I
see no reason why I cannot be free to go to
Middlebury3, say the first or second week of July. But my mother4's health is uncertain, and I might have to
go to Nebraska5 at almost any time.
If I go to Middlebury, I think I could give three lectures on writing, and one on the Writer and the Magazine Editor-- as most of your people who wish to write expect to begin their work, at least, by way of the magazine. I was for six years an editor on McClure's' Magazine6, and was Managing Editor from 1906 to 1913, back in the years when McClure's was a very good magazine indeed, and about the best friend young writers had.
After the four talks I would give an hour or two to a fifth session, in which I would not lecture, but would answer questions that had occurred to the students during the talks. I would not wish to give a talk every day, but every other day, or every third day, as you preferred.
My terms would be two hundred dollars for the five talks, and my hotel expenses while
I am at the Inn. Of course, if I became
interested in the country and the school and wished to stay longer at Bread Loaf
Inn, I would not expect to be [illegible] entertained indefinitely!
May I ask you to consider the terms I have suggested as entirely confidential and special to this project? I have never spoken at colleges for less than $200 a lecture, and from clubs I ask considerably more than do our standard club-lecturing novelists. In that way I escape from all who haven't a very unbending purpose.
Very sincerely yours Willa Sibert CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0580.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0580
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Wilfred Edward Davison 1
- Date letter was written
- February 15 [1922]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The conjectured year of this letter is derived from the fact that Cather lectured at Bread Loaf in July 1922.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Wilfred Edward Davison correspondence, Middlebury College, Davis Family Library, Middlebury, VT
Individual Annotations
The Bread Loaf summer school of English was started in 1920 on the model of Middlebury College’s already active summer schools in foreign languages. It offered master’s-level graduate courses in English and American literature, pedagogy, public speaking and debate, modern drama, and composition. As described in this letter, Cather agreed to lecture there in July 1922.
Person Annotations
Davison, Wilfred Edward (1887-1929). American academic. Born
in South Walden, VT, Wilfred Davison graduated from Middlebury College in
1913 and pursued graduate work at Harvard and Columbia. He taught in the
German department at Middlebury before transferring to the American
Literature department in 1921. As the first dean of the Bread Loaf School of
English, a summer program of Middlebury, Davison recruited nationally-known
faculty and invited visiting writers, including Willa Cather, Robert Frost,
and Dorothy Canfield Fisher to interact with the school’s students.
Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or
“Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in the Virginia to William Lee
Boak and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and
was a schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872.
Her husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War
while her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the
Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage
she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa,
Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while
three, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were born in Nebraska
after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional differences, Cather
remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who remained in Red Cloud,
NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her husband’s death in 1928
Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her children and their
families in California. She spent nearly three years in a sanitarium in
Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there several times
but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to Red Cloud for
her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931. Virginia
Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932),
which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s death.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
McClure's Magazine
