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 |
AIX-LES-BAINS
SAVOIE August 22 My Dearest Zoë1;
I've wanted to write to you for so long! After much travelling and sightseeing and meeting people, I'm spending a month in this lovely quiet place2, which is as worldly as a capital and as simple as a village. The food is only too good, alas! I've taken on four unwelcome pounds. I'd love to go over Brides-les-Bains3 for your sake, but it's a nasty little all-day journey from here, even in a car.
A thousand messages and good wishes to you, my dear. I'm going home sometime in October, probably, and return to Paris4 in ten days from now.
With love Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0696.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0696
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins 1
- Date letter was written
- August 22 [1930]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather's itinerary during her 1930 trip to France and this letter's similarity to Cather's August 21, 1930, letter to Blanche Knopf (#2617).
- Place letter was written
- Aix-les-Bains, Rhône-Alpes, France2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949, in the Clifton Wall Barrett Library (6494), University of Virginia, Special Collections, Charlottesville, VA
Person Annotations
Akins, Zoë (1886-1958). American poet, playwright, and screenwriter.
Akins’ friendship with Cather started in 1909, when she submitted
verse to McClure’s magazine, which Cather rejected,
advising her to stay with playwriting. Akins subsequently moved from her
hometown of St. Louis, MO, to New York City and achieved success as a
playwright. She moved to California in the 1930s, adding screenwriting to
her accomplishments. Her play The Old Maid (1935), an
adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. In
1932, Akins married Captain Hugh Rumbold, a British theatrical designer and
director; he died eight months later. Cather and Akins carried on a lifelong
correspondence, with Cather writing affectionate letters that included both
commentary on her own works and criticism of Akins’.
Place Annotations
