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 found my Swede and hope to get Mr. Berg3's book4 about "me and Sherwood Anderson5", and a few others, translated very soon.
Oh, the old stamp gentleman did not bother me in the least.! The only
reason I have not been back again is that in those two mornings I practically
finished up the reading I had to do. That is a delightful room to work in6 and I hope to have an opportunity to use
it again.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0823.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0823
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Edwin Hatfield Anderson 1
- Date letter was written
- February 15, 1926
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Edwin Hatfield Anderson records, 1913-1934 (MssArc 4945), New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
Anderson arranged for Cather to use a room at the New York Public Library building at 5th Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets, which housed a research rather than a circulating collection. Cather was conducting research for Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927).
Person Annotations
Anderson, Edwin Hatfield (1861-1947). American librarian.
Anderson received a BA (1883) and MA (1887) from Wabash College and
attended the New York State Library School in Albany. Hired as the librarian
at the Carnegie Free Library in Braddock, PA, in 1892, he became librarian
of the new Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in 1895, serving until 1904. He
then served as director of the New York State Library and New York State
Library Training School (1906-1908), and assistant director (1908-1913) and
director (1913-1934) of the New York Public Library. When Cather first moved
to Pittsburgh, she lived in a boarding house near the Carnegie Library, and
Edwin Anderson and his wife Frances befriended her, inviting her to dinner
at their home. When he moved to New York City, he and Cather corresponded
about a variety of matters. Anderson died in Evanston, IL.
Berg, Ruben Gustafsson (1876-1948). Swedish literary critic. Ruben Gustafsson Berg was born in Nyköping, Sweden. Berg earned his PhD in 1903, and in 1906 he began working as a professor at Stockholm University. Over the course of his career he published a variety of books on Swedish writers, such as Gustaf Fröding and C. J. L. Almaqvist. In 1925, Berg wrote Moderna Amerikaner, the first Swedish critical study of American literature. The book features chapters on Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, and Edgar Lee Masters. In addition to his literary criticism, he also published fiction, such as Bröderna (1918) and Signe Clerck (1888), the latter of which he wrote under the pseudonym "Lennart Hennings."
Anderson, Sherwood (1876-1941). American writer. Born in Camden, OH, to a blue-collar family, Anderson became a successful businessman and a president of the Anderson Manufacturing company located in Elyria, OH. In 1912, he experienced a midlife crisis, quit his business interests, and began writing novels and short stories, a collection of which, Winesburg, Ohio (1919), became his best-known work. In the 1920s he lived in Greenwich Village in New York City, but it is unclear if he and Cather ever met.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Moderna Amerikaner (1925), by Ruben G. Berg
