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 |
The Grosvenor3
35 FIFTH AVENUE
New York2 Dear Mr. Howe1
Thank you4 so much for sending me the package of letters. After I return from my trip West I shall have time to look over them5.
With my good wishes
Yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1086.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1086
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- M. A. De Wolfe Howe1
- Date letter was written
- [mid-November 1931]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Cather is responding to Howe's letter of November 16, 1931, and the conjectured date range reflects the presumption that she likely responded within a week of receiving the package.
- 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
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.
Howe sent Cather her letters to Annie Fields on 16 November 1931. See #1084 for their earlier exchange about these letters.
It is not clear whether Cather destroyed the letters, merely kept them, or returned them to Howe. Cather's letters to Fields in the Huntington's collections were donated at a later date by a relative of Annie Fields and seem to be distinct from the group in Howe's possession that he sent to her.
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.
Place Annotations
