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 am always glad to oblige a friend of my sister3's, but I never review books—I simply don't have time. I've been very much interested in the rejuvenated "Forum"4, and I beg you to bear my congratulations to Dr. Leach5. I was glad that he was able to get Miss Sedgwick6's fine story7.
Very sincerely yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0740.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0740
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only. Includes a typed transcription of the letter at the bottom of the leaf.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Eunice Chapin 1
- Date letter was written
- [August to September 1924]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Henry Goddard Leach took over the Forum in July 1923, and Anne Douglas Sedgwick's novel The Little French Girl was serialized in the Forum from February to October 1924. It is not clear which novel Eunice Chapin asked Cather to review for the magazine, but Cather's reference to Sedgwick's novel and the fact that she and Edith Lewis were on Grand Manan in August and September 1924 suggest that she wrote this letter at that time.
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- 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
Larkin, Eunice Chapin (1896-1978). American magazine editor, novelist, and screenwriter. Born and raised in Lincoln, NE, Eunice Chapin graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1915 and received a fellowship for graduate study in French at Bryn Mawr College. She became a friend of Willa Cather’s sister Elsie Cather during her studies at the University of Nebraska. In New York City Chapin worked as literary editor of the Forum from c. 1924 until she became managing editor of McCall’s in spring 1928. She corresponded with Cather about the serialization of Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and “Double Birthday” (1929) in the Forum. The success of her novel Pick Up (1931) led her to leave magazine work, move to Hollywood, CA, and become a screenwriter. She married fellow screenwriter John Francis Larkin in 1932. They frequently visited Lincoln with their twin daughters, Bourke and Morgan, and are buried in Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln.
Cather, Elsie Margaret (1890-1964) (“Bobbie”). Cather’s
sister. Born in Red Cloud, NE, shortly before Willa Cather
graduated from high school, Elsie attended the University of Nebraska in
Lincoln from 1908 to 1910, before transferring to Smith College, in
Northampton, MA, from which she graduated with an A.B. in English and Latin
in 1912. She undertook graduate study at the University of Nebraska in 1914
and in 1916 received her A.M. with a major in philosophy and a minor in
English. At both the undergraduate and the graduate level at Nebraska, she
studied under Louise Pound. She began a career in high school teaching in
1912, when she took a position in Lander, WY, where her brother Roscoe then
lived with his family. She also taught in Albuquerque, NM; Corning, IA;
Cleveland, OH; and briefly Red Cloud, when illness in the family brought her
home. Her longest tenure as a teacher was at Lincoln (NE) High School, where
she began teaching in 1920, with Olivia Pound and Mariel Gere as colleagues.
Willa Cather's expectation that Elsie be responsible for aging family and
friends and for legal affairs after their parents' deaths sometimes brought
the sisters into conflict. Elsie Cather retired from Lincoln High School in
1942. She died in Lincoln.
Leach, Henry Goddard (1880-1970). American author, educator, and editor. Leach (Princeton University BA 1903, Harvard University PhD 1908) was a leading authority on Scandinavian literature. He served as editor of The Forum from 1923 to 1940 and president of the American-Scandinavian Foundation from 1926 to 1947. The Forum serialized Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and published “Double Birthday” (1929) in two parts. When Granville Hicks used a review of Shadows on the Rock (1931) in the Forum to launch what Cather perceived as an attack on her personally, she was aggrieved but accepted Leach’s apparent apology. It is not clear when Cather and Leach first met, and their extant correspondence relates exclusively to his work as editor of the Forum. However, in the 1940s she called him an “old friend” and apparently saw him socially in New York City (#2191).
Sedgwick, Anne Douglas (1873-1935). Anglo-American writer.
Born in New Jersey, Sedgwick’s family moved to London, England, in
1882; she spent two years (1885-1887) living with her grandparents in Ohio,
and five years (1891-1896) studying painting in Paris, France, but
thereafter lived primarily in England. Her first novels were published in
1898 and 1899; her tenth novel, Tante (1912), about a
temperamental concert pianist, became a best-seller in the United States.
Tante and a later novel, The
Little French Girl (1924), were both made into films. Sedgwick
married British writer Basil de Sélincourt in 1908; both did volunteer work
in France during World War I. Although there is no evidence Sedgwick and
Cather ever met, through a mutual friend Sedgwick introduced Stephen Tennant
to Cather.
Place Annotations
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
Work Annotations
Forum
The Little French Girl (1924) by Anne Douglas Sedgwick
