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 am everlastingly grateful to you for calling my attention to my astronomical blunder. I knew that in the summer of 1893, sitting on a board sidewalk in a little Nebraska town3, I did see the planet Venus go behind the moon and reappear. The neighbors said it was a 'transit' of Venus. When I wrote the story4 last year, I could easily have checked up on this point, but I knew I had seen the planet behave in such a manner, and it did not occur to me that I had better make sure that I was giving the correct name to its behaviour.
Since your letter was forwarded to me I have had the matter looked up by the Knopf
office, and we find that there was an occultation of Venus in the summer of 1893.
The correction has been made in the second printing,;
and your kindly letter will probably save me from
writing many letters to indignant scientists, and has saved me from making the same
blunder in the English edition; we cabled Cassells5 at once to make the change.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1119.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1119
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- William Lyon Phelps 1
- Date letter was written
- August 16 [1932]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by the publication of Obscure Destinies in 1932.
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- William Lyon Phelps Papers (YCAL MSS 678), Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT
Individual Annotations
London publisher Cassell and Company, Ltd. issued Cather's works in Britain beginning with Shadows on the Rock in 1932.
Person Annotations
Phelps, William Lyon (1865-1943). American critic and professor. Born of an old New England family, Phelps grew up in New Haven, CT, where he received his BA (1887) and PhD (1891) from Yale University. He began teaching English and European literature at Yale in 1892, teaching one of the first courses in the modern novel. He also lectured widely, wrote a regular newspaper column, and published many critical essays. Cather disagreed with many of his ideas but responded courteously when he wrote to correct her astronomical terminology in “Two Friends” (1932).
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
"Two Friends," Obscure Destinies (1932) by Willa Cather
