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 |
Annex ACCOMODATIONS
200 GUESTS ALL MODERN
CONVENIENCES AT THE FOOT OF MONADNOCK MOUNTAIN
JAFFREY, N.H.2 October 27 Dear Miss Monroe1;
Thank you so much for Miss Butcher4's review5. It's so agreeable to have someone see what the story6 was about! Not one of the other reviews I've seen but said "Ah yes, we are all our own worst Enemy!" Sad and true—but in this instance not the point!
My eyes are all right again, thanks!
Cordially yours Willa Cather AMERICAN PLANOPEN ALL THE YEAR
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0856.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0856
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Harriet Monroe 1
- Date letter was written
- October 27 [1926]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather's reference to My Mortal Enemy (1926) and Fanny Butcher's review of it.
- Place letter was written
- Jaffrey, New Hampshire, United States2
- Location of original letter
- , University of Chicago, Special Collections Research Center, Chicago, IL
Individual Annotations
Shattuck Inn (Jaffrey, NH): Hotel built in 1910 in Jaffrey, N,H owned and operated by E. C. Shattuck until his death in February 1933, when operation was taken over by his daughter, Eleanor Shattuck Austermann, and her husband George Austermann. Cather stayed at the Shattuck Inn many times, often with Edith Lewis, finding it a useful place to work. In 1947, Cather wrote of the Shattuck Inn: “I have never found any place where I could work in such peace and happiness as in the little rooms up in the top of the Shattuck Inn” (#1748).
Person Annotations
Monroe, Harriet (1860-1936). American editor and poet.
Harriet Monroe was born in Chicago, IL, and earned a reputation as a
poet while still young. However, she soon realized how difficult it was to
make a living as a poet and worked as a journalist for many years. In 1912,
with money from a settlement and with wealthy Chicagoans as sponsors, she
launched Poetry: a Magazine of Verse, which
published, and paid fairly for, the work of poets who would become
recognized as many of the twentieth century’s best. Monroe solicited poems
by Cather for her magazine and published “Spanish Johnny” and “The Palatine”
in her anthology, New Poetry (1917), but Cather was
displeased at the typographical errors in them.
Bokum, Frances Amanda Butcher (1888-1987) (“Fanny”).
American newspaper critic and bookstore owner. Born in Fredonia,
KS, Butcher moved to Chicago, IL, as a child. She received an A.A. from
Lewis Institute in 1908 and a BA from the University of Chicago in 1910. In
1911, Floyd Dell of the Chicago Evening Post assigned
her to review Alexander’s Bridge (1912). Cather wrote
the anonymous reviewer care of the Post, beginning
their correspondence and friendship. From 1913 until her retirement in 1963,
Butcher wrote for the Chicago Tribune, becoming
literary editor in 1922. She ran Fanny Butcher Books in Chicago from 1919
until 1927, when she sold it to Doubleday. Cather frequently saw Butcher
when she changed trains in Chicago and closely followed Butcher’s reviews of
her works, often writing to her about them. She also relied on Butcher’s
knowledge of the book business and particularly book distribution in the
Midwest. Their extant correspondence begins in 1920, although in her memoir
Many Lives—One Love (1972), Butcher
paraphrases earlier letters. Butcher married Richard Drummond Bokum in 1935.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"My Mortal Enemy is a Masterpiece, by Willa Cather," Chicago Daily Tribune (October 23, 1926) by Fanny Butcher
My Mortal Enemy (1926) by Willa Cather
