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 |
I'm awfully sorry that I'll be out of town2 on Thursday and cannot go to your tea3. I'd like to meet Mrs. Pennell4 for many reasons— one of them being that she is the only person I
know of who finds moving pictures as dreary as I do do!
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1098.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1098
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elmer Adler1
- Date letter was written
- March 5 [1932]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Elmer Adler Papers (C0262), Princeton University, Firestone Library, Princeton, NJ
Individual Annotations
In a letter misdated 2 February 1932, Adler asked Cather to tea "next Friday, a week from today" to meet "Mrs. Joseph Pennell."
Person Annotations
Adler, Elmer (1884-1962). American printer, publisher,
editor, and author. After moving from Rochester, NY, to New York
City, Adler founded the Pynson Printers in 1922. He also became a partner in
Random House in 1922 and founded the Colophon: A Book
Collector’s Quarterly in 1930. Adler’s Pynson press produced deluxe
limited editions of April Twilights and Other Poems
(1923) and December Night (1933) (an excerpt from Death Comes for the Archbishop). He also designed the
edition of Death Comes for the Archbishop illustrated
by Harold von Schmidt (1927), the title page for My Mortal
Enemy (1926) and the title page and dust jacket for Shadows on the Rock (1931). Adler approached Cather
in 1929 about contributing to a planned series in the Colophon on “Getting into Print”; her essay “My First Novels
(there were two)” finally appeared in 1931. In 1940, Adler established the
Department of Graphic Arts at Princeton University, where he remained until
1952. He then moved to Puerto Rico to establish La Casa del Libro, with
which he was associated until his death.
Pennell, Elizabeth Robins (1855-1936). Expatriate American writer. Born in Philadelphia, PA, daughter of Edward Robins and Margaret Holmes Robins, Elizabeth Robins was educated at convent schools after her mother’s early death. She began to write for magazines, publishing a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft in 1884, the same year she married artist Joseph Pennell. The couple moved to England, where they wrote and illustrated books about their bicycling journeys in Europe. Elizabeth Pennell wrote art criticism and food criticism, amassing a remarkable collection of early cookbooks, and hosted a salon for literary and artistic figures. The Pennells moved back to the U.S. after World War I broke out, settling in New York City in 1921. Elizabeth Pennell moved to an apartment on Park Avenue after her husband’s death in 1928, continuing to write and host dinners for the writers and artists who were their friends. Cather may have met Pennell in London, and probably in New York, where they had friends in common.
Place Annotations
