József Reményi (October 10 [1934])

#1236: Willa Cather to József Reményi, October 10 [1934]

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notes written by someone other than Willa Cather	Note in another's hand
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passage written by Cather on separate enclosure.	written text

⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ October 10^th Dear Mr. Remenyi¹;

I have just come down³ from New Foundland⁴ and find a suitcase full of letters waiting to replies. Therefore I must be brief.

I: I will give you permission to translate into the Hungarian language a short story from my volume of short stories entitled "Youth and the Bright Medusa"⁵. That is the title of the volume, you understand. You may use either "Paul's Case"⁶ or "The Sculptor's Funeral"⁷. The former is much the better story, the latter may be a better length for you. I will let you use either of these stories without charge, though I have never done this before. (My royalties on translations are now very profitable.) You will find the volume containing these stories in almost any public ~~librar~~ library, I think.
II I am writing my secretary⁸ to send you a pamphlet⁹ which my publisher gets out for schools and colleges. It contains some biographical matter from which you can easily make your biographical sketch.
III I have no photographs with me. When I return to New York¹⁰ about the middle of November I will send you one, if that is not too late for your purposes. Those I left with my secretary are all gone, she writes me.

Sincerely yours Willa Cather

My present address is on the envelope in which I send this letter.

Information about this letter:

Source File:: cat.let1236.xml
Letter identifier: 1236
Contents: Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
Person to whom letter was written: József Reményi¹
Date letter was written: October 10 [1934]
Explanation of conjectured date: The conjectured year is derived from a penciled note on the letter, which corresponds roughly with Cather's travel schedule in late summer and fall 1934 (although her reference to being in Newfoundland is evidently false).
Place letter was written: Jaffrey, New Hampshire, United States²
Location of original letter: Jozsef Remenyi Correspondence 1922-1962 (MS 3198), Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH

Individual Annotations

Cather had been on Grand Manan Island from late July through mid-September 1934.

Person Annotations

2041

Reményi, József (1892-1956). Hungarian-American writer and professor. Born in Pozsony, Hungary, József Reményi studied at universities in Budapest and Vienna before becoming a journalist. In 1914 he emigrated to Cleveland, OH, where he wrote for a Hungarian-language newspaper and married actress Margaret Papaloczy in 1918. Remenyi wrote novels, some with a Cleveland setting, which were published in Budapest. In 1929 he began teaching European and comparative literature at Western Reserve University; he also sought to introduce American writers to Hungarians. He corresponded with Cather about including one of her works in his anthology of translations of American fiction Mai Amerikai Dekameron (Modern American Fiction) (1935).

0102

Bloom, Sarah J. (1889-1961). Cather's personal secretary. Born in New York in 1889 to Russian immigrants Solomon and Bertha Bloom, Sarah J. Bloom worked for Cather from some time in the 1920s until Cather's death and continued to work for Edith Lewis on matters pertaining to Cather's literary estate thereafter. Bloom typed Cather's literary manuscripts and managed Cather's correspondence, typing dictated letters and sometimes responding for Cather when she was traveling. Bloom’s work for Cather supplemented full-time office employment in New York City (for many years she worked for the New York State Public Service Commission). She thus came to Cather and Lewis's apartment on weekends to take dictation, pick up and deliver typescripts, and deliver typed letters for signature. She died in New York city in 1961.

Place Annotations

Jaffrey, New Hampshire, United States

Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

New York, New York, United States

Work Annotations

Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920), by Willa Cather

"Paul's Case," Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920), by Willa Cather

"The Sculptor's Funeral," Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920), by Willa Cather

Willa Cather: A Biographical Sketch, an English Opinion, and an Abridged Bibliography (1926), by Anonymous [Willa Cather]