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 |
You seem to have been in New York2 during the one week in the winter I spend3 in Philadelphia4. I’m awfully sorry I missed you—I particularly wanted to hear about your trip abroad. Please drop me a line and give me your Pittsburgh5 address—I wanted it this fall to send you a copy of “My Mortal Enemy”6, which I had a premonition you would understand—and that most people wouldn’t!
With friendliest regards to you both7 Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0871.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0871
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- George Seibel1
- Date letter was written
- January 24 [1927]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
My Mortal Enemy was published on 20 October 1926, which Cather references wanting to send to Seibel "this fall," dating this letter 1927.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Individual Annotations
Willa Cather was probably visiting her friend Ethel Litchfield, who lived in Philadelphia, PA.
Person Annotations
Seibel, George (1873-1958). American literary and drama critic.
Cather met Seibel and his wife Helen while working as editor of the
Home Monthly in Pittsburgh in 1896 and 1897. They
regularly studied French and German together, Cather read her work in
progress to him, and George reviewed April Twilights
(1903) in the Pittsburgh Gazette.
Seibel, Helen Hiller (1873-1971). Cather’s Pittsburgh friend.
Born in Pennsylvania to German immigrant parents, Helen Hiller
married George Seibel on 6 September 1894. Their one child, Erna, was born
in 1897. Cather met the couple through George Seibel’s work for the Home Monthly, which Cather was editing. Soon the
three were meeting frequently at the Seibel home, studying and translating
French and German literature. Cather read her own poetry and short stories
to them as well. The Seibel house at 114 S. 17th Street on Pittsburgh’s
South Side served as the model for the home of Alfred Engelhardt and his
uncle in “Double Birthday” (1925).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
My Mortal Enemy (1926) by Willa Cather
