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 |
35 FIFTH AVENUE
New York2 Spetember 26, 1928. My dear Mr. Goodman1:
I do not at all like writing articles about my own work, and I so seldom write short stories that it seems to me you have every reason to excuse and exclude me from your book4. There are several editors for whom I have promised to make the sort of statement you ask me to make, and I could not in fairness write even a short article of that sort to oblige you, when I have so long held these old friends off with promises which have come to nothing.
Very sincerely yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0945.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0945
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Theodore Goodman1
- Date letter was written
- September 26, 1928
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949, in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library (6494), University of Virginia, Special Collections, Charlottesville, VA
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.
In 1926, Goodman published Narrative Structure and Style: A Series of Graded Exercises with Instructions in Technique. His next book on creative writing, The Writing of Fiction: An Analysis on Creative Writing, did not appear until 1955.
Person Annotations
Goodman, Theodore (1894-1952). American professor of English. Born in New York City to Moses and Anna Goldwater Goodman, immigrants from Russian Poland, Theodore Goodman graduated from the City College of New York in 1915. After serving in the Army during World War I, he taught high school for three years and earned his MA from Columbia University in 1919 and his PhD in 1936 from New York University; his dissertation topic was “Maria Edgeworth: Novelist of Reason.” In 1922 he joined the faculty of the City College of New York, becoming one of its most influential teachers of creative writing. On 2 October 1928 Goodman gave a radio talk entitled "Willa Cather" on WYNC, which led to a brief correspondence between them.
Place Annotations
