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 |
It's worth writing a book3 to have somebody get the point of it absolutely. I'm willing to bet you're the only one who does4—no other review5 that I've seen comes anywhere near getting it. Of course the thing I was writing about was just that fundamental attraction and antagonism—that the more complete and intense the pleasure of being two is, the more fiercely the individual self in one resents it, sooner or later. Not a question of pale loves at all, this; but of the fierce and brilliant ones—which are rare.
Harriet Munro6 was kind enough to send me your review. Will you please send me two more copies? I want to send them to dear friends in France7.
I've had a glorious autumn up here, and have done some mountain climbing I'm very
shirty about—for I have short legs, and a good many pounds to carry up to the
summit! I go back to N.Y.8 tomorrow. Please
let me know if you come to town. I do hope you'll like my
Archbishop9, Fanny. Begins in the Forum10 in
January, but I'm ommo omitting about one-fourth for
the serial. It's an altogether new kind for me, but how
I loved doing it! It was as if one had always played modern composers, and at last
had the time and control to practice Bach11
awhile. Modest comparison!
Thank you, dear Fanny, for taking the trouble to get the point of a story so devilish hard to tell as my "Mortal Enemy".
Yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0857.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0857
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Fanny Butcher1
- Date letter was written
- October 27 [1926]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather's reference to Fanny Butcher's October 23, 1926, review of My Mortal Enemy.
- Place letter was written
- Jaffrey, New Hampshire, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Fanny Butcher Papers, 1830-1984 (Midwest MS Butcher), University of Vermont, Bailey-Howe Library, Burlington, VT
Individual Annotations
In her review, Butcher praises both Cather generally as "the predominant woman novelist of the day" and My Mortal Enemy as a work testifying to "the steady rhythm of the fundamental hatred of the sexes one for the other and their irresistible attraction one for the other."
Person Annotations
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.
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.
Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750). German composer. Born in
Eisenach, Germany, into a family of musicians, Johann Sebastian Bach was a
preeminent baroque-era composer, whose most famous works include: "Toccata
and Fugue in D minor," "Mass in B Minor" (1724-1749), the "Brandenburg
Concertos" (1711-1720), and "The Well-Tempered Clavier" (1722-1740). After
hearing Yehudi Menuhin play Bach in concert Cather wrote, “I think that was
the most beautiful and lofty music I have ever listened to” (#2048).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
My Mortal Enemy (1926), by Willa Cather
"My Mortal Enemy is a Masterpiece, by Willa Cather," Chicago Daily Tribune (October 23, 1926), by Fanny Butcher
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), by Willa Cather
Forum
