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 |
200 GUESTS The Shattuck Inn3
Annex ALL MODERN
CONVEINENCES AT THE FOOT OF THE MONADNOCK MOUNTAIN
JAFFREY, N.H. AMERICAN PLAN
OPEN ALL OF THE YEAR Sept 17th Dear Fanny Butcher1;
I said4 legend, didn't I, not folk-lore?
There's such a difference. Folk-lore is unarticulated—detached. But legend is a sort
of interpretation of life by Faith. It was that background of order and discipline
that made
gave the lives of those missionaries5 proportion and measure measure and accent, like a work of art.
Yes,6 of course you may use anything I
said, provided that
ACCOMMODATIONS FOR
200 GUESTS
The Shattuck Inn
Annex
ALL MODERN
CONVEINENCES
AT THE FOOT OF THE MONADNOCK MOUNTAIN
JAFFREY, N.H.
AMERICAN PLAN
OPEN ALL OF THE YEAR it
doesn't sound as if I were defending the book.
I'm so sorry you tired and used up—I'm a wreck myself, trying to get rested enough to start for Arizona7. Of course I'll let you know when I go through Chicago8. Rush your Archbishop9 for autograph along to me here2—you can have it bound afterward. I'm not likely to have an address for some months. Awful way to live!
ACCOMMODATIONS FOR200 GUESTS The Shattuck Inn
Annex ALL MODERN
CONVEINENCES AT THE FOOT OF THE MONADNOCK MOUNTAIN
JAFFREY, N.H. AMERICAN PLAN
OPEN ALL OF THE YEAR
You did nobly10 by me in your review11—but sometime, in the country, you must run
over that book just the way you read the
"Swiss Family Robinson"12 when you were little, not as
writing at all, but sort of living along with the priests and their mules in a world
where miracles really come into the day's work, or into one's experience of it,
which is the same thing.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0896.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0896
- Contents
- Document is three leaves, handwritten on recto of each leaf only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Fanny Butcher1
- Date letter was written
- September 17 [1927]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by the publication Fanny Butcher's review of Death Comes for the Archbishop in the September 3, 1927, issue of the Chicago Tribune.
- Place letter was written
- Jaffrey, New Hampshire, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Fanny Butcher Papers, 1830-1984 (Midwest MS Butcher), Newberry Library, 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).
Cather is elaborating on her remarks on Death Comes for the Archbishop in #0892.
Presumably Cather is authorizing Butcher to quote from #0892.
In her review Butcher praised Death Comes for the Archbishop as "a tremendous piece of work--a vivid but calm portrayal of not death at all coming for the archbishop but of a long life lived bounteously and fully." She also conceded, however, that the "meagerness of plot" was not likely to please many readers.
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.
Lamy, Jean-Baptiste (1814-1888). French Roman Catholic Archbishop and missionary. Born in Lempdes in Auvergne, France, Jean-Baptiste Lamy attended the seminary of Clermont and then the seminary of Mont Ferrand, where he met fellow student Joseph Machebeuf. Lamy was ordained in 1838 and assigned to a parish in the town of Chapdes, France. In 1839, he and Machebeuf traveled to the U.S., where Lamy served at a parish in Danville, OH, for 8 years. In 1849, he was appointed the head of the newly formed Vicariate of New Mexico and appointed Machebeuf as his Vicar-General. Lamy finally arrived in New Mexico in 1851, where he conflicted with priests who had served under a Mexican bishop. The Vatican elevated Lamy to Archbishop of Sante Fe in 1875; he retired in 1884. During their 1925 trip to New Mexico, Willa Cather and Edith Lewis became interested in the lives of Lamy and Machebeuf, and Cather based Jean Marie Latour in Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) on Lamy.
1069Machebeuf, Joseph P. (1812-1889). French Roman Catholic Bishop and missionary. Born in Riom, France, Joseph Machebeuf entered the seminary of Mont Ferrand, where he met fellow student Jean-Baptiste Lamy. Machebeuf was ordained in 1836 and served as a curate in Le Cendre. In 1839, Machebeuf and Lamy traveled to the U.S., where Machebeuf served as a curate in Tiffin, OH and then in 1841 as a priest in Sandusky, OH. When Lamy was appointed the head of the newly formed Vicariate of New Mexico in 1849, he appointed Machebeuf as his Vicar-General. He served as priest at Albuquerque (1853–1858) and at Santa Fe (1858–1860) before being transferred to Colorado, where he was elevated Vicar Apostolic of Colorado and Utah in 1868 and then Bishop of Denver in 1887. During their 1925 trip to New Mexico, Willa Cather and Edith Lewis became interested in the lives of Lamy and Machebeuf, and Cather based Joseph Vaillant in Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) on Machebeuf.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather
"Willa Cather's New Novel is Simply, Beautifully Told," Chicago Tribune (September 3, 1927) by Fanny Butcher
The Swiss Family Robinson (1812) by Johann David Wyss
