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 Sept 14 My Dear Zoë1,
I must hand you the flowers—every one of them, and I offer you my proud congratulation upon such a happy summer. I am here2 for the month of Sept.—having my right arm and shoulder boiled for a stubborn, settled neuritis which has kept me idle the greater part of the time since I left N.Y.3 and has made me very uncomfortable, and, at times, discouraged. However, after only the tenth treatment it is very markedly better; and as the doctors here insist on thirty treatments for it, I begin to hope for a complete cure. I'm still forbidden to write until it's quite well, so this is only a hurried note. Of course I hated to quit Paris4, but Aix is a place one grows to love. And the mountains all about are so magnificent. I've had some wonderful motor trips. I do nothing but bathe, and eat the most delicious food, and soak up the blue-and-gold weather, and take on weight, alas! After one eats and drinks at Aix for a month, one has to go to Bride5 to repent. I return to Paris October 1, and will sail as soon as I get through sitting for me portrait6, proud Lady! Bakst7 is doing it, and it's been very exciting and delightful to be with him so much in his beautiful studio.
Now I must rest my game arm and take a drive up the mountains. Thank you for the pen points—such splendid ones—and the clippings, which were all new to me. Every possible good luck to you, and I'll be seeing you very soon.
Devotedly WillaOh, it's the noble city of Omaha8 thats having my portrait done. I'm not paying out good money for a picture of me face—don't think it of me.
Miss Zoë Akins1 The Berkley 20 Fifth Avenue New York City3 U. S. A [missing]BAINS SAVOIE2 [missing]-0 23 Via S. S. "Berengaria"Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0701.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0701
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins 1
- Date letter was written
- September 14 [1923]
- Place letter was written
- Aix-les-Bains, Rhône-Alpes, France2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949, in the Clifton Waller 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’.
Bakst, Léon (1866-1924). Russian painter and theatrical
designer. Born in Russia, Lejb-Khaim Rosenberg decided to become
an artist when he was twelve. He studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of
Arts. In 1889 he took the surname Bakst. In 1893 Bakst went to Paris to
study for four years, becoming a part of Sergei Diaghilev’s avant-garde
artistic group. He became known as a portraitist in the early twentieth
century, then in 1909 turned to stage and costume design for Diaghilev and
the Ballets Russes, the work for which he is now best known. In 1922 he
visited the U.S., where his friend and patron Alice Warder Garrett had
organized exhibitions of his work. Willa Cather met Bakst in Paris in 1923.
When a women’s federation in Omaha was raising funds to have a portrait
painted of her, Bakst suggested he do the portrait. Cather enjoyed talking
with Bakst during the sittings, but, like other viewers, she had mixed
reactions to the finished portrait.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Portrait of Willa Cather by Léon Bakst (1923).
