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 had read and hugely enjoyed your book3 before I got
your letter, and I honestly had not thought of "A Lost
Lady"4 when I read that
passage5 to which you now call my attention. So many people have tried to
say that same thing before either you or I tried it, and nobody has said it yet. I
supoose everybody who has ever been swept away by personal charm tries in some way
to express his wonder that the effect is so much greater than the cause,—and in the end we all fall back upon an
old device and write about the effect and not the lovely creature who produced it.
After all, about the only thing one
can tell about beauty, is just how hard one was hit by it. Isn't that so?
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0781.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0781
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- F. Scott Fitzgerald1
- Date letter was written
- April 28, 1925
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- F. Scott Fitzgerald Additional Papers (C0188), Princeton University, Firestone Library, Princeton, NJ
Individual Annotations
In his undated letter, Fitzgerald briefly quoted from memory a passage near the end of A Lost Lady about title character Marian Forrester as remembered by Niel Herbert. In full, the passage reads: "Her eyes, when they laughed for a moment into one's own, seemed to promise a wild delight that he has not found in life. 'I know where it is,' they seemed to say, 'I could show you!' He would like to call the shade of the young Mrs. Forrester, as the witch of Endor called up Samuel's, and challenge it, demand the secret of that ardour; ask her whether she had really found some ever-blooming, ever-burning, ever-piercing joy, or whether it was all fine play-acting. Probably she had no more than another; but she had always the power of suggesting things much lovelier than herself, as the perfume of a single flower may call up the whole sweetness of spring." Fitzgerald enclosed manuscript pages to prove that he had written a similar passage of The Great Gatsby (about the charm of Daisy Buchanan's voice) before he read A Lost Lady to prove that he had not plagiarized.
Person Annotations
Fitzgerald, F. (Francis) Scott (1896-1940). American novelist and
short story writer. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, better known
as F. Scott Fitzgerald, was born in Saint Paul, MN to Edward and Mary
Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald enrolled at Princeton University in 1913, where he
wrote for the Naussau Lit, Princeton Triangle Club, and the Princeton
Tiger before leaving to serve in the United States Army during
World War I. He published his first novel, This Side of
Paradise, in 1920, which earned him immediate critical acclaim and
commercial success. Fitzgerald followed the success of his debut novel with
a series of increasingly well-received novels and short stories, including
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (1922), The
Beautiful and Damned (1922), and The Great
Gatsby (1925), widely considered to be his masterpiece. He died of
a heart attack in Hollywood, CA. Fitzgerald wrote Cather in 1925, expressing
concern about similarities between a description of Marian Forrester from
her novel A Lost Lady (1923) and a description of
Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. There is no
evidence the two writers ever met.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
The Great Gatsby (1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Lost Lady (1923), by Willa Cather
