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 have looked at Miss Owen3's book4, and it seems to me just like so many things
– somewhat promising – it
seems as if she had
possibilities.
bBut really I don't know any other way to get started in writing than
through the magazines. That is the way I got started, and the magazines are so much
easier of access now than they were in the days when I was beginning to write. They
give the young writer a much wider choice of subject; they are not so afraid of
"gloom" or of bad words! Fifteen years ago a magazine would seldom print anything
longer than six thousand words – now they sometimes print stories twenty
thousand words long in one number. There are literally ten times as many magazines
now as there were then, and they pay much larger prices. Any able young person ought
to be able to get started through the magazines.
The trouble about this writing of little sketches is that there is nothing difficult about it, and I think Miss Owen has got into easy-going habits of writing. At any rate, these sketches do not measure up with most of the stuff young writers send me.
A happy New Year to you, dear Mr. White, and to Mrs. White5, and I hope you will both be dropping into New York2 one of these days.
Very cordially yours, Willa CatherI don't know why I write you an essay on magazines – you know all these facts as well as I do! But things are easier for the young writer now than they used to be.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0816.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0816
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- William Allen White1
- Date letter was written
- January 8, 1926
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- William Allen White Papers (MS011067), Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Person Annotations
White, William Allen (1868-1944). American newspaper editor and
fiction writer. As the editor and publisher of the Emporia Gazette, White had an audience and influence
far beyond the small town of Emporia, KS. He married Sallie Lindsay in 1893
and they bought the Gazette in 1895, with his wife
working with him on all aspects of producing the paper. His fiery
anti-Populist editorial “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”, published during
the 1896 presidential campaign, made his national reputation, although his
politics later shifted from his early conservative Republicanism. Dubbed the
“Sage of Emporia” by H.L. Mencken for his widely reprinted editorials, he
won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for an editorial advocating free speech. He
began publishing short stories about small-town life in the 1890s, including
in McClure’s Magazine; Cather later remembered
reading his “Court of Boyville” stories with her brother Roscoe and
marveling that a man from Kansas had been able to publish them in McClure’s (#2242). White stopped writing fiction
after the failure of his novel In the Heart of a Fool
(1918), however. In the Nation Randolph Bourne
praised My Ántonia (1918) while denigrating the
“swollen bulk” and “stale brightness of conversation” in White’s fiction.
Cather approved Bourne’s comparison, dismissing White’s “jocular, familiar,
grapenutsy way” of presenting his subject matter that “really presents…his
own essentially vulgar personality” (#2085). Cather’s correspondence with
White commenced in 1919. She later asked him to review One
of Ours (1922), suggesting that although she had few “readers in
Nebraska or Kansas,” the novel was for her “home people,” who would be
persuaded by his opinion (#0603). He apparently did not review the novel,
but they met when he visited New York City in October 1922 and maintained a
cordial correspondence until his death.
Owen, Jennie Small (1885-1973). American journalist, historian, and author. Born in Superior, NE, Jennie Small Owen graduated from the Kansas State Normal School in Emporia around 1920, and then worked for the Emporia Gazette, which was owned by William Allen White, a friend of Willa Cather. In 1925 Owen published a book of sketches of rural life, Fodder, which Willa Cather found only “somewhat promising.” Owen also worked for the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka, KS, and compiled two volumes of the Annals of Kansas.
White, Sallie Lindsay (1869-1950). American newspaper editor. Born in Nicholasville, KY, Sallie Lindsay taught for five years in Kansas City, MO, before marrying William Allen White in 1893. In 1895 the Whites purchased the Emporia Gazette and moved to Emporia, KS. Sallie was highly involved in producing and developing the paper. After her husband died in 1944, Sallie White became co-owner of the Gazette. While Willa Cather was a friend of William White, it is unclear if she knew Sallie White personally.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Fodder (1925), by Jennie Small Owen
