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 |
Some weeks ago I wrote my publisher3 to send
you my new book4. I could not autograph it, for I was
then travelling in a remote part of Canada5.
The book has probably reached you before this, and if you have had leisure to read
it you probably agree with me that one of the stories at least, "Old Mrs. Harris"6, strikes a more authentic note than
the Quebec story7 I sent you a year ago. A story A book which grows out of admiration and
study never has the authentic ring of a book that grows out of early experiences.
Nevertheless, I do believe in a rotation of crops,—in writing as well as in
agriculture.
You asked me, after I sent ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ you the Quebec story, whether I were on the road to becoming a Catholic. By no means! I do, however, admire the work of the Catholic missionary priests on this continent.
I find I have a copy of a letter8 I wrote Governor Cross9 of Connecticut10, after his review11 of the book appeared. I am enclosing it, as an explanation of how I happened to write "Shadows on the Rock." The work of the French Catholic missionaries was unique in that they brought with them a kind of culture and a way of living. These endure to this day—in the Province of Quebec12, at least.
Please let me say in closing that your interest in my books is one of the most deeply
satisfying things that have come to me as a writer. I don't believe they would ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩
would have caught your attention if there were
not something genuine and indigenous in them. The longer I live the more I feel that
I am willing to be ever so little, if only I can be ever so true true.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1123.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1123
- Contents
- Document is three leaves, handwritten on recto only of each leaf.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Tomáš Masaryk 1
- Date letter was written
- September 23 [1932]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather's reference to Obscure Destinies (1932) as her "new book."
- Place letter was written
- Jaffrey, New Hampshire, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Masaryk Garrigue Tomáš, Masaryk Institute and Archive of the ASCR, Prauge, Czech Republic
Person Annotations
Masaryk, Tomáš (1850-1937). Founder and first president of Czechoslovakia. Born in Moravia, which was then part of the Austrian Empire, Tomáš Masaryk received a doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1876. Studying in Leipzig, he met and then married American music student Charlotte Garrigue in 1878. Appointed professor of philosophy at the Czech University of Prague in 1882, he used his academic writings to promote the value of Czech culture. When he entered politics in the 1890s, he took up the cause of the Slovaks in northern Hungary. A key figure in the Czech-Slovak Union, he was elected Czechoslovakia’s first president in 1918. He resigned the presidency in 1935. Cather began corresponding with Masaryk in 1925 after he sent her a letter. She professed she was “glad” that her novel My Ántonia (1918) had “carried a message from [her] Bohemian neighbors” that she “loved as a child, to their home country” (#0768).
Knopf, Alfred A. (1892-1984). President of New York
publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Knopf received his BA from
Columbia University in New York City in 1912 and founded Alfred Knopf, Inc.,
in 1915 with his future wife Blanche Wolf. They married in 1916, and their
son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Cather chose him as her publisher
beginning with Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920) and
One of Ours (1922), partly because she was
dissatisfied with the promotion of her books by Houghton Mifflin but also
because she recognized the high quality of Knopf's books, as well as what
she regarded as his intelligent advertising. Knopf was noted for publishing
the work of leading European and South American writers in translation, as
well as original works. Knopf and Cather’s extensive correspondence
testifies to their mutual professional respect and to what also became an
important personal friendship.
Cross, Wilbur (1862-1948). American scholar and state governor.
Wilbur Cross was born in Connecticut and educated at Yale, where he
earned a PhD in 1889. He became an English literature professor at Yale in
1894, specializing in the novel and editing the Yale
Review (for which he solicited articles from Cather). An
influential literary critic, Cross wrote an important review of Shadows on the Rock (1931), to which Cather replied
in one of her few letters commenting on her work to be made public. After
Cross’s retirement from Yale, he was elected governor of Connecticut,
serving four two-year terms from 1931 to 1939.
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
Obscure Destinies (1932), by Willa Cather
"Old Mrs. Harris," Obscure Destinies (1932), by Willa Cather
Shadows on the Rock (1931), by Willa Cather
"Points of View: 'Shadows on the Rock,' A Letter by Willa Cather," Saturday Review of Literature (October 17, 1931), by Willa Cather
"Men and Images," Saturday Review of Literature (August 22, 1931), by Wilbur Cross
