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 |
Yes indeed3, I beg you to destroy all my letters before you dispose of Mrs. Fields4' correspondence. There are very special reasons why I wish this to be done.
In the first place, those letters are entirely artificial and unrepresentative of me. Your feeling that they might be of some guidance to a future biographer is mistaken; they would only mislead him. Mrs. Fields was so new a type in my expenrience that I was never at ease in writing to her. I was always afraid of touching upon one of her prejudices, or in some way letting the noisy, modern world in upon her. So I always tried to write her long sentences that meant nothing. I remember perfectly well how I used to struggle to fill out a few pages and say nothing at all.
Of course, when I was with Mrs. Fields herself, I never felt any constraint; in fact, there were few people with whom one could be so unguarded. That was because she was the soloist and I the accompanist. How delightful it was to have her look up from the morning paper and ask gravely: "My dear, who is this Rex Beach5, has he to do with letters?"
But there was none of this genuineness and spontaneous pleasure in my letters to Mrs. Fields. They were written from a sense of duty - just because she enjoyed opening the morning mail. So if you will just ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ put them in the furnace, I shall be greatly obliged to you.
Always faithfully yours, Willa CatherP.S. It has just occurred to me that the most satisfactory arrangement would be to ask you to send the letters in question to me, at the Grosvenor Hotel6, 35 Fifth Avenue, New York2, where I shall be stopping for a week or ten days. I will glance at them, and if there are any that seem to be more than mere formal evasion, I will return them to you for your collection.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1084.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1084
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, typewritten on recto of each leaf only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- M. A. De Wolfe Howe1
- Date letter was written
- November 11, 1931
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Howe, M. A. De Wolfe (Mark Antony De Wolfe), 1864-1960 (MSAm1524), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Individual Annotations
On 30 October 1931, Howe wrote Cather that he had failed to carry out her request to destroy her letters to Annie Adams Fields (see #3036). He explains that he arranged for the acquisition of Fields's papers by the Huntington Library in 1922, and before he did so, he consulted "living persons" (including Cather) about the disposition of their letters to Fields. He did not send Cather's letters to the Huntington, but he suggests that, with her permission (and "with any conditions" on access she might want), he might add them to the Huntington collection because "Some day this material bearing upon your thoughts and feelings at an important time in the establishment of the position you now occupy, will be of great interest to some critical historian of the period, and of your part in the expression of it in writing."
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.
Person Annotations
Howe, Mark Antony De Wolfe (1864-1960). American author and editor. Born in Rhode Island and raised in Pennsylvania, Howe earned a BA from Lehigh University and a second BA and an MA in English literature from Harvard University. He worked as assistant editor of the Youth’s Companion from 1888 to 1893 and of the Atlantic Monthly from 1893 to 1895. In 1899 he married Fanny Quincy, daughter of Boston mayor Josiah Quincy, and returned to editorial work on the Youth’s Companion, which he continued until 1923. He became firmly associated with his adopted city, writing and editing books about it and its famous figures, including Memories of a Hostess: A Chronicle of Eminent Friendships Drawn Chiefly from the Diaries of Mrs. James T. Fields (1922), which Cather reviewed for the Atlantic Monthly and which inspired her essay “The House on Charles Street” (1922, later revised and retitled “148 Charles Street” [1936]). Cather corresponded with Howe in 1911 about a biographical essay he submitted for McClure’s Magazine, and they may have corresponded earlier when Cather’s poem “The Night Express” appeared in the Youth’s Companion or met in person at the Boston home Fields shared with Sarah Orne Jewett. As executor of Fields’ literary estate, Howe corresponded with Cather about the disposition of her letters to Fields. He died in Cambridge, MA.
Fields, Annie Adams (1835-1915). Literary hostess, author, and social
reformer. At age 20, Annie Adams married James T. Fields,
partner in the Boston publishing house of Ticknor & Fields. Both before
and after her husband’s death in 1881, Fields often entertained important
American, British, and European authors at her home at 148 Charles Street in
Boston, MA. After James’ death, Sarah Orne Jewett, whose books were
published by Ticknor & Fields, began sharing Annie’s homes at 148
Charles Street and Manchester-on-the-Sea, MA. Cather met Fields in Boston in
1908, a meeting Cather described in "The House on Charles Street," an essay
reviewing Memories of a Hostess (a volume of
selections from Fields' journals, 1922). A revised version of this essay,
retitled "148 Charles Street," appeared in Not Under
Forty (1936). After Jewett’s death in 1909, Fields edited The Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), which
included several letters to Cather. Fearing that 148 Charles Street would
become a museum after her death, Fields requested that it be torn down.
Beach, Rex (1877-1949). American novelist. Born in Michigan
and reared in Florida, Beach was educated at Rollins College and studied law
in Chicago. In 1900 he joined the gold rush to the Klondike. His five years
of prospecting were unsuccessful, but he drew on his experiences in Alaska
in his early fiction. His first novel, The Spoilers
(1906), and several others set in Alaska or in the West, were best-sellers
and made into action plays and films. Cather disliked Beach’s work, which
appeared occasionally in McClure’s Magazine, and felt
pressure in her early career to make her novels of the West more like his.
There is no evidence that Cather and Beach ever met.
Place Annotations
