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 June 26, 1931. My dear Father Talbot1:
I don't think my book4 could have given you much more
pleasure than your gracious letter of
approval5 gives me. If you have been studying the early history of
Quebec6, you well know how contradictory
their own historians are, and how
difficult it is to come at a fair estimate of some of the men who are prominent in
that period. I have been going to Quebec for many years and the thing that I always
feel there, the thing that I admire, is a certain loyalty to language and religion
and tradition. Some of those qualities are essentially French,; but in Quebec
they seem more moving and rather more noble than in France7 itself. Quebec seems to me more like a period than a place -
like something cut off from France of 200 years ago, which, in some respects,
were
was certainly finer than the France of
today or America8 of today. I feel that the
Rock still stands there, though so many generations have come and gone and cast
their shadows in the sunlight for a little
while.
There are some intentional inaccuracies,; the King's warehouse, at that time, was at the mouth of the River Charles9 - it was not until some years later that it was
placed where I put it in my story. But in all the larger matters I tried to be as
accurate as I could.
Thanking you most cordially for your very heartening encouragement, I am
Most sincerely yours, Willa CatherP.S. I think I ought to tell you that I made some rather grave errors in Catholic practice in the original manuscript (such as having Mass said for an individual soul on All Souls Day) and that these errors were corrected by an extremely intelligent and brilliant Catholic woman, Mrs. Garret MacEnerney10, the wife of the celebrated San Francisco11 lawyer12.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1059.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1059
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Francis Xavier Talbot 1
- Date letter was written
- June 26, 1931
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Francis X. Talbot, SJ Papers (GTM-900914), Georgetown University, Lauinger Library, Washington, DC
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.
On 19 June 1931, Talbot wrote Cather about the selection of Shadows on the Rock for the Catholic Book Club, of which he was editorial secretary. He enclosed a copy of his 18 June 1931 letter to M. Manley Aaron at Alfred Knopf, Inc., confirming arrangements for the book club selection. Having been provided with an advance copy of the novel, he praised Cather's treatment of the history of "Jesuit missionaries and martyrs" in Quebec based on his own research on them, praised her style of historical writing, and predicted "benedictions and congratulations from Catholics throughout the country."
Person Annotations
Talbot, Francis Xavier (1889-1953). American Roman Catholic priest and historian. Born in Philadelphia, PA, Francis Xavier Talbot was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1921. He edited America: The Jesuit Review, the Catholic Mind, and Thought; founded: the Catholic Book Club, the Catholic Poetry Society of America, the Catholic Theater Conference, and the Catholic Library Association; and wrote Saint Among Savages (1935), Shining in the Darkness (1932), and Jesuit Education in Philadelphia (1927). Father Talbot wrote to Willa Cather about Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and Shadows on the Rock (1931).
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.
McEnerney, Garret W. (1865-1942). California lawyer. Born in
Napa, CA, a son of Irish immigrants, Garret McEnerney was admitted to the
bar in 1886. He moved to San Francisco, CA, in 1889, becoming one of the
most prominent lawyers in the state, arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme
Court and the World Court. First appointed to the University of California
board of regents in 1901, he later became its chairman. After the death of
his first wife in 1900, he married Genevieve H. Green in 1903; together they
edited a volume of English and American poetry. Cather may have met the
McEnerneys through the Menuhins and the Ehrman family of San Francisco.
Garret McEnerney, who represented the city of San Francisco without charging
fees, also helped Cather without charging a fee when her private letters
were misused for advertising.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Shadows on the Rock (1931), by Willa Cather
