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 |
Mr. Johnson5's letter6 did not reach me until some days after yours, but it finally found me. I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing you on the afternoon of the 14th. I have not been in New York7 at all yet, as I came back from France8 on a C. P. R.9 boat, by way of Quebec10.
Cordially yours Willa Cather Mr. Wilbur Cross1 The Yale Review3 P. O. Box 1729 New Haven 4 Conn. JAFFREY N. H.2 NOV 7 1930 630AMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1019.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1019
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Wilbur Cross 1
- Date letter was written
- [November 5, 1930]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Cather most likely accidentally wrote "October" rather than "November" on this letter postmarked November 7, given Cather was still in Quebec City on October 5, 1930.
- Place letter was written
- Jaffrey, New Hampshire, 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
Individual Annotations
See #1023 to Johnson accepting a Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927).
Canadian Pacific Railway.
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.
Johnson, Robert Underwood (1853-1937). American editor, poet, and
diplomat. Born in Washington, DC, and educated at Earlham
College, Johnson began his career in publishing as a clerk at Scribner
Educational Books and was soon promoted to the editorial staff at Scribner’s Monthly, which evolved into the Century Magazine. He was promoted to editor in chief
of the Century in 1909 and resigned in 1913. At the
Century he accepted Cather’s “The Joy of Nellie
Dean” (1911) and rejected “Behind the Singer Tower” (1912). Johnson also was
a respected poet, an advocate of international copyright and environmental
conservation, the secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and
briefly (1920-1921) U.S. Ambassador to Italy.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Yale Review
