Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 |
730 FIFTH AVENUE
New York WHALE COVE GRAND MANAN2 NEW BRUNSWICK CANADA Dear Mr. Wagenknecht1;
I am sorry that I cannot give you permission to use my name in your prospectus. It would involve me in the many other invitations of the same kind. I never do casual writing for periodicals.
Sincerely yours Willa Cather Mr. Edward Wagenknecht1 University of Washington Seattle3 Washington U.S.A. NORTH HEAD N. B.2 JUL 23 31 (Dept. of English)Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1063.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1063
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Edward Wagenknecht1
- Date letter was written
- [July 23, 1931]
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Literary and Historical Manuscripts (MA 2494 (2)), Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY
Person Annotations
Wagenknecht, Edward (1900-2004). American writer, teacher, and critic. Born and raised in the Chicago, IL, area, Edward Wagenknecht received an MA (1924) and PhD (1932) from the University of Chicago. He spent most of his career as a university professor at Boston University, from which he retired in 1965. Both before and after his retirement, he was a prolific author with a focus on cultural history, literary criticism, and biography. Before corresponding with Cather about her early uncollected short fiction, he had published biographies of Geraldine Farrar (1929) (who was a personal friend), Charles Dickens (1929), Jenny Lind (1931), and Mark Twain (1935). He included a chapter on Cather in his Cavalcade of the American Novel (1952), and his last published book was the critical monograph Willa Cather (1994).
Place Annotations
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
