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 am so sorry. But that was a fortunate way for a man to die. I'm awfully glad you I saw your
father4, you remember you brought him over once just when I was
starting for Nebraska5. I like to know my
friends' families—it somehow makes them seem more real. I begin to think that just
an isolated individual, no single individual, is very
real. Does that ever strike you? I'm glad you wrote me from the train—and I'm afraid
you were right, that the worst was yet to come—when you got home.6 But hope for the best for you. Leave home
and get back to New York7 as soon as you
can, that will be the best thing for you. I'm so sorry you have to move, those big
quiet rooms we were a perfect setting for you and
all your friends. I will be back on Bank
Street8 about the 25th of this month. Be sure to send me your new address. The
autumn is lovely here. I was here, you remember, on this mountain when I first heard
of the success of "Déclassé."9
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0746.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0746
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins 1
- Date letter was written
- October 4 [1924]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather's reference to the 1924 death of Zoë Akins' father.
- Place letter was written
- Jaffrey, New Hampshire, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Zoë Akins Papers, 1878-1959 (mssAU 1-5456), Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
Individual Annotations
Shattuck Inn (Jaffrey, NH): Hotel built in 1910 in Jaffrey, N,H owned and operated by E. C. Shattuck until his death in February 1933, when operation was taken over by his daughter, Eleanor Shattuck Austermann, and her husband George Austermann. Cather stayed at the Shattuck Inn many times, often with Edith Lewis, finding it a useful place to work. In 1947, Cather wrote of the Shattuck Inn: “I have never found any place where I could work in such peace and happiness as in the little rooms up in the top of the Shattuck Inn” (#1748).
5 Bank Street (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis beginning in 1912, located in Greenwich Village in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Subway construction forced Cather and Lewis to relocate in 1927.
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’.
Akins, Thomas Jasper (1852-1924). Missouri businessman and politician; father of Zoë Akins. Born in Cedar County, MO, eldest of the twelve children of John Akins and Mary Jane Holbert Akins, Thomas Akins grew up on the family farm. He married Sarah E. “Lizzie” Green in 1871; they had five children, three of whom survived to adulthood. The family moved to Humansville, Polk County, MO, where Thomas Akins opened the Humansville People’s Headquarters department store and was president of the local bank. Active in Republican politics, he was a national committeeman. President Taft appointed him postmaster of St. Louis, where the family moved, in 1909; his daughter, Zoë Akins, served as his private secretary. Akins ran for the U.S. Senate in 1914. He was buried in Humansville. Cather met Thomas Akins once, and sent her condolences to her friend Zoë Akins upon his death.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"Déclassée" (1919) by Zoë Akins
