Marion Gause Canby ([May 23 to 31, 1925])

#0828: Willa Cather to Marion Gause Canby, [May 23 to 31, 1925]

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⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ Dear Mrs. Canby¹:

I sent you goodbye by your husband³, but I must add a word direct. Tonsils are awful—I've been through 'em, and nothing ever made me sicker than that operation⁴. I'm off for Arizona⁵ in a few days, to ride horseback. I rather particularly hope you'll like my new book⁶—out in September. If you do will you drop me a line and tell me so? To me it was an interesting experiment in form—done rather like a concerto. Here's hoping you'll be much better without your tonsils, anyhow!

Faithfully Willa Cather

Information about this letter:

Source File:: cat.let0828.xml
Letter identifier: 0828
Contents: Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
Person to whom letter was written: Marion Gause Canby ¹
Date letter was written: [May 23 to 31, 1925]
Explanation of conjectured date: The conjectured date range reflects both Cather's travel plans in 1925 and her reference to a forthcoming book as resembling a concerto. In late May 1925, Cather was anticipating a trip to Arizona (see #0783), and the three-part form of The Professor's House, which appeared in September 1925, arguably resembles a concerto. A May 1926 date for this letter is also plausible but less persuasive. In 1926, Cather did travel to Arizona and ride horseback there, and My Mortal Enemy was published in September 1926; however, its two-part form does not resemble a concerto.
Place letter was written: New York, New York, United States²
Location of original letter: Henry Seidel Canby Papers (YCAL MSS 64), Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT

Individual Annotations

Cather had her tonsils surgically removed in 1922.

Person Annotations

0292

Canby, Marion Ponsonby Gause (1885-1974). American poet. Marion Ponsonby Gause was born in Wilmington, DE, and was educated at a private school. She married Henry Seidel Canby in 1907; they had two sons. She published two volumes of poetry, High Mowings (1932) and On My Way (1937). Cather probably met the Canbys in the early 1920s; her extant correspondence with them, together and individually, began in 1922.

0291

Canby, Henry Seidel (1878-1961). American critic and editor. Born to a prominent Wilmington, DE, family, Canby received a BA (1899) and PhD (1905) from Yale University. He began teaching English at Yale in 1900 and was editor of the Yale Review from 1911 to 1922. In 1920 he founded the Literary Review of the New York Post, which became an independent magazine, the Saturday Review of Literature, in 1924; he served as editor until 1936. He became editor in chief of the Book-of-the-Month Club on its founding in 1926. Canby married Marion Ponsonby Gause, also of Wilmington, in 1907, and they had two sons. Cather’s acquaintance with the Canbys seems to predate 1922, when her cordial correspondence with the Canbys began. In the Literary Review she published "The House on Charles Street" (1922) and in the Saturday Review a letter to Wilbur Cross on Shadows on the Rock (1931) and an essay on Thomas Mann (1936).

Place Annotations

New York, New York, United States

Arizona, United States

Work Annotations

The Professor's House (1925) by Willa Cather