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 |
I was disappointed when I found you were not in New Haven3! I had counted on seeing you4. I've been in New York5 so little for the last two years that I never see anyone there. I've been on the train most of the time, it seems to me, hurrying to members of my family who were desperately ill. But it can't go on like this. "Fortune, turn thy wheel" as Kent said in the stocks, when the sun was going down—that's a very fine passage in a very fine play6, you remember.
I have built a little hut up here in a lovely spot over the sea, the most solitary place, and I'm beginning to feel the spring come back into me a little—glad to waken up in the morning. That's a good sign.
Affectionately yours Willa CatherI have not your address, though I saw your house!
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1064.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1064
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Marion Gause Canby 1
- Date letter was written
- [mid-July to mid-September, 1929]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The conjectured year of this letter is derived from Cather's apparent reference to being at Yale University in New Haven to receive an honorary doctorate in 1929, and the range of months encompasses her time on Grand Manan Island that year.
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Henry Seidel Canby Papers (YCAL MSS 64), Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT
Individual Annotations
On 19 June 1929, Yale University awarded Cather an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.
Person Annotations
Canby, Marion Ponsonby Gause (1885-1974). American poet. Marion Ponsonby Gause was born in Wilmington, DE, and was educated at a private school. She married Henry Seidel Canby in 1907; they had two sons. She published two volumes of poetry, High Mowings (1932) and On My Way (1937). Cather probably met the Canbys in the early 1920s; her extant correspondence with them, together and individually, began in 1922.
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.
Work Annotations
King Lear by William Shakespeare
