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 |
UNDER SAME
MANAGEMENT
GREAT NORTHERN
ENDICOTT
NETHERLAND
HERMITAGE
WOODSTOCK
CUMBERLAND
GRAND
NAVARRE
TIMES SQUARE
YORK
BELL APARTMENT
MARTHA WASHINGTON
ALSO
PLAZA HOTEL
CHICAGO HOTEL WOLCOTT
FIFTH AVE. & THIRTY-FIRST ST.
TELEPHONE LACKAWANNA 7800
I haven't moved—I'm only dining here3.
May 9th Dearest Zoë1;I was so grateful to you for sending me a word from the boat, after I so dismally failed to reach you in any way. But you've forgiven me by now—In Paris4, in May one can forgive one's enemies—and even one's friends. May in Paris - - - it's the best combination I know in this world!
I'm off to Bowdoin College Maine5 tomorrow,
to make my address6. Mary Jewett7 is to come by
and motor me home to South Berwick8. After
with a few days with her I go to Wellesley9 for a few days with Mary Virginia10, then back here. On May 30 I start
for the Grand Canyon and wild Arizona11.
I'm half through my book proofs12—they go pretty well. I'm so glad you're having a real fling, my dear, and not hanging round New York2. I hope the time will be perfectly golden for you! Drink my health, please!
WillaInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0782.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0782
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins 1
- Date letter was written
- May 9 [1925]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather's lecture at Bowdoin College on May 13, 1925.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949, in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library (6494), University of Virginia, Special Collections, Charlottesville, VA
Individual Annotations
Cather is annotating the letterhead for the Hotel Wolcott on which she wrote this letter to Akins.
On 13 May 1925, Cather gave a lecture titled "The Talk About Technique" at Bowdoin College as part of its Institute of Modern Literature, an event held on the centennial of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's and Nathaniel Hawthorne's graduation. Reports of the lecture are in Bohlke's Willa Cather in Person.
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’.
Jewett, Mary Rice (1847-1930). Sarah Orne Jewett’s sister. Born in Exeter, NH, to Dr. Theodore Herman Jewett and Caroline Frances Perry Jewett, Mary was the older sister of Sarah Orne Jewett. They both attended Berwick Academy in Berwick, ME, and as adults they continued to live together in the family home in South Berwick, where Mary was active in a local women’s club and charitable work. On Sarah’s death, Mary and Annie Adams Fields became co-executors of Sarah’s literary estate. Cather’s friendship with Mary seems to date primarily from this period after Sarah’s death, and Cather made several visits to Mary at the Jewett family home in Maine. In 1924, with Mary Jewett’s approval, Ferris Greenslet of Houghton Mifflin asked Cather to select and write an introduction to Sarah Jewett’s stories. Shortly thereafter, Burton Rascoe reported critical remarks by Cather about Sarah Jewett’s works and the Jewett family in his “Bookman’s Day Book” column in the New York Tribune. Mary read these remarks as reprinted in the Boston Transcript, was offended, and sought to have Cather removed as editor of her sister’s works. However, Cather and Greenslet persuaded her to reverse this decision (Cather’s letters pleading her case have not been located). Mary Jewett died in South Berwick, and her nephew Theodore Jewett Eastman succeeded to the executorship of Sarah Jewett’s literary estate.
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
