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 |
Mrs. McEnerny3 has been reading my page proofs4 and has pointed out some serious errors in Catholic practice, so I'll be nailed to the mast for this week correcting them—rather difficult in page proofs, of course. But mercy on us, wasn't it kind of her to set me right! I'm more grateful to her than I can say. I'll telephone you when this ordeal is over.
Devotedly Willa Miss Zoë Akins1 2140 Canyon Drive Hollywood5 California PASADENA, CALIF.2 APR 21 1931 12 PM LOSANGELES, CALF.6 APR 21 1931 8 PMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1048.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1048
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins 1
- Date letter was written
- [April 21, 1931]
- Place letter was written
- Pasadena, California, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Zoë Akins papers, 1878-1959 (mssZA 1-7330), Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
Person Annotations
Akins, Zoë (1886-1958). American poet, playwright, and screenwriter.
Akins’ friendship with Cather started in 1909, when she submitted
verse to McClure’s magazine, which Cather rejected,
advising her to stay with playwriting. Akins subsequently moved from her
hometown of St. Louis, MO, to New York City and achieved success as a
playwright. She moved to California in the 1930s, adding screenwriting to
her accomplishments. Her play The Old Maid (1935), an
adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. In
1932, Akins married Captain Hugh Rumbold, a British theatrical designer and
director; he died eight months later. Cather and Akins carried on a lifelong
correspondence, with Cather writing affectionate letters that included both
commentary on her own works and criticism of Akins’.
McEnerney, Genevieve Hamilton Green (1871-1941). American literary
editor; Cather’s friend. Born in Colusa, CA, Genevieve Green was
a daughter of influential newspaper publisher and activist William S. Green
with his second wife. She married San Francisco lawyer Garret W. McEnerney
in 1903. She collaborated with him on an anthology of English and American
poetry and with Wallace A. Briggs on another volume. Cather may have met the
McEnerneys through the Menuhins and the Ehrman family of San Francisco, or
the connection may have come through McEnerye’s cousin, Zoë Akins; Cather
and Genevieve McEnerney corresponded, but only one letter, from Genevieve to
Cather, is known.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Shadows on the Rock (1931), by Willa Cather
