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 |
I can't help being sorry that you sold the book shop. It always seemed to me a kind of oasis - so different from other book shops. But although I'm sorry on my own account, I'm glad on yours, if you are going to have more time to do your work and to do the sort of un-rushed living that enables one to work.
I wish you could have come to Jaffrey3 while I was there, but I was never sure that I might not be leaving the next day. I have been in New York2 two weeks now and am staying at the Hotel Grosvenor4, 35 Fifth Avenue. I hate any hotel, but this will have to do until I go West, which I hope will be soon. I have been held here by a queer appendix, or something of that kind, which seems to need watching. When its all right I'll be off, and I'll warn you when I go through Chicago5. I'm the sort of person who can't stand being homeless - I feel only half alive.
Devotedly always, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0911.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0911
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Fanny Butcher1
- Date letter was written
- November 8, 1927
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Fanny Butcher Papers, 1830-1984 (Midwest MS Butcher), Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Individual Annotations
Grosvenor Hotel (New York City): When Cather and Edith Lewis lost their 5 Bank Street apartment in 1927, they moved into the Grosvenor Hotel, where they continued to live until 1932. The hotel was located at 35 Fifth Avenue in the Manhattan borough of New York City.
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.
Place Annotations
