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 wrote you the enclosed note3 in a happy
frame of mind on Tuesday. Tuesday night I retired from the world with a nasty attack
of neuritis. I held my letter up, hoping that my arm and shoulder would get better,
as they have often done before,.
bBut this time
I seem to be in for something worse than usual, and I've begun the dreary round of
medical investigation. Much as I hate it, I've got to disappoint you and Mary Virginia4 and myself. I had planned a jolly
holiday, and I perfectly hate giving it up. Please forgive me for not letting you
know before; I thought I might have luck
and get over this. But it remains too painful to allow me to go a-visiting.
I've been having attacks of neuritis for eight years. It's an affliction very incompatible with my profession, as six or eight weeks of steady writing usually brings on an attack, as in the present instance. I can work about half an hour, and then I have to lie down with a hot water bottle.
Yes, m'am, thank you, I've plenty of doctors,– and much good they do.! I have no
dead teeth, and they've already cut out my
tonsils, so they have very little to work upon.
I've made up my mind to go up to see Virginia and her school this winter, however, and I'm not going to be done out of it. After Christmas I'll appear on your scene. When I get to a breathing place in my story5, and my arm and shoulder are behaving well, I'll take a Boston6 train without plans, and call you up from the Parker House7. This letter will not disappoint either you or the child so much as it does me.
Faithfully yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0755.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0755
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only. This letter originally included #0752 as an enclosure.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Susan Adele Lathrop1
- Date letter was written
- [November 15 or 22, 1924]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The conjectured date is based on #0752, dated November 9 [1924], which was enclosed with this letter. The conjectured dates are the two Saturdays after November 9, 1924.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- , Colby College, Miller Library, Waterville, ME
Individual Annotations
See #0752, although November 9 was a Sunday, not a Tuesday, in 1924.
Parker House Hotel (Boston, MA): Built in 1855 and founded by Harvey D. Parker, the Parker House (now Omni Parker House) is the longest continuously operating hotel in the US. Cather stayed here a number of times in the early 20th century, before the Parker House was largely rebuilt in 1927. Located in downtown Boston, the Parker House was an important gathering place for writers, performers, and politicians.
Person Annotations
Lathrop, Susan Adele (1875-1956) (“Adele”). American educator; Cather’s acquaintance. Born in Connecticut, Adele Lathrop accompanied Willa Cather’s friend Louise Pound on a trip to Europe around 1900. Lathrop then visited Pound in Lincoln, NE, in 1901, and entered the University of Nebraska, graduating in 1904. In 1908, having received her M. A. from Wellesley College, she was appointed instructor in English at Wellesley. In 1911 she became assistant principal of Dana Hall, a preparatory school for girls in Wellesley, and from 1916 to 1928 served as the second president of Pine Manor Junior College, which had been established in 1911 as a post-graduate division of Dana Hall. Lathrop traveled frequently to Europe until late in the 1930s. In 1902, Lathrop was in London, England, and showed Willa Cather and Isabelle McClung around the city.
Mellen, Mary Virginia Auld (1906-1982) (“Virginia,” “M.V.”).
Cather's niece. Born in Red Cloud, NE, to Jessica Cather Auld
and James William Auld, Mary Virginia graduated from Red Cloud High School
in 1924 and then spent a year at Dana Hall in Wellesley, MA, to qualify for
admission to Smith College in Northampton, MA. In 1929 she received an A.B.
in psychology from Smith and then moved to New York City, where she found
work at Lord & Taylor before telling her aunt of her arrival. In 1930,
probably with Willa Cather's help, she secured a position in the Circulation
Department of the New York Public Library. In 1931, she entered the
library's internal training school and in 1932 was assigned to the Tremont
branch library in the Bronx. After Mary Virginia’s parents divorced in 1933
Cather took a quasi-parental role. She paid for vacations and when, in 1935,
Mary Virginia married Richard (Dick) Mellen, a graduate of Harvard Medical
School and roommate of her brother William Thomas Auld at Amherst College,
she supervised wedding arrangements. After Dick was commissioned as a doctor
in the Air Force, Mary Virginia—much to Cather’s
regret—accompanied him to Chattanooga, TN, where he was assigned. In
Cather's will, Mary Virginia was designated a beneficiary of the literary
estate.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
The Professor's House (1925), by Willa Cather
