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 certainly could not permit you to say that the sketch of Nat Wheeler3 is my ‘favorite piece’ of my own writing, for I made no such statement in my letter to you4. I merely suggested that passage as better than something else that you proposed quoting,- I forget what. I know I did not make such a statement, because it is far, far from the truth. I must have expressed myself very clumsily, and therefor I can’t give you permission to use any part of my letter in your book. If you were asking me to make a statement for publication, you should have told me, you know. Perhaps you didn’t ask for any ‘statement’,- perhaps I was off my guard and made one. One gets tired of being cautious. but it’s necessary My Secretary5 will be back tomorrow, luckily for me. People never seem to try to take advantage of her. Excuse this very poor typing.
Very sincerely yours Willa CatherMy address is in care of my New York2 publisher6.
February 19thInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0962.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0962
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Josephine K. Piercy1
- Date letter was written
- February 19 [1929]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather's subsequent correspondence with Piercy about this matter through Ellen Burns (#0964), dated February 28, 1929.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- McClure MSS. 1865-1949 (LMC 1687), Indiana University, Lilly Library, Bloomington, IN
Individual Annotations
See #0943 in which Cather responded to Piercy's request to anthologize an excerpt from One of Ours (1922).
Person Annotations
Piercy, Josephine Ketcham (1895-1995). American academic. Born in Indianapolis, IN, Josephine Piercy received a BA (1918) and MA (1919) from Indiana University, a second MA from Columbia University (1923), and a PhD from Yale University (1937). She began as an instructor at Indiana in 1926 and retired from there as a full professor in 1966. Her scholarly focus growing out of her doctoral work was early American literature, but she also edited Modern Writers at Work (1930 and later editions), an anthology for use in creative writing classes. Cather’s correspondence with Piercy about her potential inclusion in this anthology became contentious.
Burns, Ellen. Name used to sign letters as Cather’s secretary. Several times in the 1920s, letters were signed under the name Ellen Burns, ostensibly Cather’s secretary. These letters were sent when Cather was away from New York City and, in at least one instance, when Cather was feigning being away from New York City. The signatures on these letters and some manuscript corrections strongly suggest that Edith Lewis signed them and likely dictated them (Lewis never learned to type). Put another way, it seems likely that no person named Ellen Burns was actually involved in the production of these letters.
Knopf, Alfred A. (1892-1984). President of New York
publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Knopf received his BA from
Columbia University in New York City in 1912 and founded Alfred Knopf, Inc.,
in 1915 with his future wife Blanche Wolf. They married in 1916, and their
son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Cather chose him as her publisher
beginning with Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920) and
One of Ours (1922), partly because she was
dissatisfied with the promotion of her books by Houghton Mifflin but also
because she recognized the high quality of Knopf's books, as well as what
she regarded as his intelligent advertising. Knopf was noted for publishing
the work of leading European and South American writers in translation, as
well as original works. Knopf and Cather’s extensive correspondence
testifies to their mutual professional respect and to what also became an
important personal friendship.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
One of Ours (1922), by Willa Cather
