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 |
Indeed, I'll be glad to answer any questions you wish to ask,—but I see my friends so seldom now-a-days, because I am so little in New York2. Next week I am going to California3 again to be with my mother4, and I do not know how soon I shall be able to come back. Yes, I have another book5 two-thirds done, but this vagabond life I lead just now holds it up. I long for the time when I can settle down in New Haven6, or some other haven. My warm regards to Helen McAfee7, and for yourself, be assured of them always.
Faithfully yours Willa CatherHave you read "Laughing Boy"8? You'll like it.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1005.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1005
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Wilbur Cross 1
- Date letter was written
- February 11 [1930]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by the publication of Oliver LaFarge's Laughing Boy in 1930.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Yale Review Records, 1911-1949 (YCAL MSS 145), Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT
Person Annotations
Cross, Wilbur (1862-1948). American scholar and state governor.
Wilbur Cross was born in Connecticut and educated at Yale, where he
earned a PhD in 1889. He became an English literature professor at Yale in
1894, specializing in the novel and editing the Yale
Review (for which he solicited articles from Cather). An
influential literary critic, Cross wrote an important review of Shadows on the Rock (1931), to which Cather replied
in one of her few letters commenting on her work to be made public. After
Cross’s retirement from Yale, he was elected governor of Connecticut,
serving four two-year terms from 1931 to 1939.
Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or
“Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in Virginia to William Lee Boak
and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and was a
schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872. Her
husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War while
her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the
Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage
she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa,
Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while
three, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were born in Nebraska
after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional differences, Cather
remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who remained in Red Cloud,
NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her husband’s death in 1928
Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her children and their
families in California. She spent nearly three years in a sanitarium in
Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there several times
but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to Red Cloud for
her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931. Virginia
Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932),
which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s death.
McAfee, Helen Flora (1884-1956). American editor. McAfee was born in Marblehead, CT, and in 1903 graduated from Smith College, where she and Edith Lewis belonged to the same literary society. She taught English in New Haven, CT, from 1903 to 1909, taking graduate courses in English at Yale University from 1908 to 1909. She served as head of the English department of the American College for Girls in Constantinople, Turkey, from 1909 to 1912. On returning to graduate studies at Yale, she worked as editorial assistant at the Yale Review. She earned her A.M. in 1914, and Yale University Press published her thesis Pepys on the Restoration Stage in 1916. She continued as assistant editor of the Yale Review under Wilbur Cross and later became managing editor. She corresponded widely with authors, including Willa Cather, seeking contributions, and also wrote articles and reviews.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Shadows on the Rock (1931), by Willa Cather
Laughing Boy (1930), by Oliver LaFarge
