Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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'm awfully sorry to seem ungracious, but "The Willing Muse"3 is such a poor story, so tepid and bloodless,
that I Wwouldn't on any account allow it to be reprinted. I can imagine with waht
what severe comment you would justly accompany such a dull
performance. But it's hardly fair to take a piece of student's work like that, even
to have some fun with the author.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0862.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0862
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Fred Lewis Pattee 1
- Date letter was written
- December 2 [1926]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The conjectured year for this letter is derived from its place in a sequence with #0868, which is dated January 3, 1927.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Fred Lewis Pattee Papers, Pennsylvania State University, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, University Park, PA
Person Annotations
Pattee, Fred Lewis (1863-1950). American educator and author.
Born on a New Hampshire farm, Pattee worked his way through
Dartmouth College, graduating in 1888. He was appointed assistant professor
at Pennsylvania State College in 1894 and promoted to full professor a year
later. Pattee wrote literary histories and edited the anthologies that first
made teaching college-level courses in American literature possible. His Century Readings for a Course in American Literature
(1919, 2nd ed. 1926) was widely adopted. He wrote Cather in 1926 seeking
permission to include “The Willing Muse” (1907) in an anthology, but she
suggested “The Sculptor’s Funeral” (1905) instead. The story appeared in his
Century Readings in the American Short Story
(1927).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"The Willing Muse," Century Illustrated Monthly (August 1907), by Willa Cather
