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 just back from my autumn in New Hampshire4. I will speak5 in Chicago6 the night of the 17th of November. Could you please reserve a room for me at the Hotel Sissons, on the lake side of the building if possible, for Sunday the 15th until Wednesday?
If you would like to have me I could come to you on Wednesday and leave Chicago on Thursday.
Please write me what station I had better got off at to go direct to the
Sissons,- I will go over the N.Y. Central. Don't try to meet me, but please
come out to see me Sunday afternoon if you can, and will you be able to dine
with me early on Tue Tuesday afternoon and
help me dresse(
-a very simple
operation) and go to the Leon Mandel Assembly hall with me and hold my
hand?
Just send me a wire when you get this to tell me whether you will be in the
city then. If you should be away, I will have to get the University people
to engage my room. I enclose a lteer from the person7
T At the University who has charge of the
lectures.
I am swamped in housekeeping and business details!
Hastily Willa From W. S. Cather 5 Bank Street, New York2 Mrs. C. W. Weisz1 818 Lafayette Parkway Chicago6 Ill. NEW YORK, N.Y. STA. C2 NOV 4 1925 430 PM LectureUniversity Chig.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0802.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0802
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only. Includes one envelope, handwritten, and one enclosure.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Irene Miner Weisz 1
- Date letter was written
- November 4 [1925]
- Accompanying this letter
-
Includes letter addressed to Cather from Nathaniel Butler, assistant to the President of the University of Chicago, dated October 29, 1925.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Irene Miner Weisz Papers, 1912-1958 (Midwest MS Cather-Weisz), Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Individual Annotations
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.
At the invitation of Nathaniel Butler, Cather gave one of the William Vaughn Moody lectures at the University of Chicago's Mandel Hall on 17 November 1925.
Person Annotations
Weisz, Irene Miner (1881-1971). Musician; Cather’s lifelong
friend. Born in Red Cloud, NE, the youngest child of James L.
Miner and Julia Erickson Miner, Irene Miner was educated in Red Cloud,
graduating in 1898 and played with the Cather children as part of the play
town of Sandy Point and in amateur theatricals. She studied piano with local
teachers, such as Mrs. P.E.B. Sill, then went to the Chicago College of
Music from 1899 to 1901. She met clerk Charles Weisz, later president of the
A.F. Shaw insurance company, there; they married in late 1915, settling in
Chicago. She visited Red Cloud frequently, but also travelled in the
American West and then to Europe in 1921 and around the world in 1934.
Cather corresponded with Irene Miner Weisz for many years and sometimes
stayed with her in Chicago when travelling to and from the West. My Ántonia is dedicated to Irene, model for Nina
Harling in the novel, and to her sister Carrie Miner Sherwood.
Butler, Nathaniel Jr. (1853-1927). American educator. Born in Maine, Nathaniel Butler, Jr., received his BA and MA from Colby College in Waterville, ME, which he later served as president (1895-1901). Butler taught at the University of Chicago, serving as Dean of the College of Education (1905) and Dean of the University College (1916). Butler invited Cather to give the William Vaughn Moody lecture at the University of Chicago in November 1925 and corresponded with her about it.
Place Annotations
