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 |
Yes3, I certainly dislike the new code of manners which tries to get an advertising value out of everything, and to convert every simple human feeling into a blurb of some kind. But just because manners are as they are, I think all of us who have the slightest feeling for the English language should stand out against this vulgar publicity racket. There simply never can be any discriminating use of language in a society where there are not delicate distinctions in manners.
I think you were quite right in your half expressed suggestion that I made a mistake in allowing a certain letter4 to Governor Cross5 to be published. Henry Canby6 is an old friend of mine, and because I have so often promised him articles and never written them, I yielded to his persuasion. As I recall the letter, it was not very personal in tone and was an answer to some published statements7 by Governor Cross. It was not at all, I think, informal in its tone. However, I am perfectly assured of your good intentions and thank you for your courteous letter.
Cordially yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1299.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1299
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Carlton F. Wells 1
- Date letter was written
- February 27, 1936
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Benjamin D. Hitz Papers, 1913-1949 (Midwest.MS.Hitz-Cather), Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Individual Annotations
This letter is part of sequence with #1290 and #1294. In #1294 Cather refused his request to quote from what she said in #1290 about Lucy Gayheart.
Person Annotations
Wells, Carlton Frank (1898-1993). American academic. Born in Vicksburg, MI, Carlton Wells earned a BA (1920) and MA (1922) from the University of Michigan, where he taught from 1921 until his retirement in 1968. Wells edited a number of essay anthologies for use in the writing classroom, including Further Adventures in Essay Reading (1928), for which he sought permission to reprint Willa Cather’s essay “Nebraska: The End of the First Cycle” (1923), although the essay did not appear there. He also wrote Cather about Obscure Destinies (1932) and Lucy Gayheart (1935).
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.
Canby, Henry Seidel (1878-1961). American critic and editor. Born to a prominent Wilmington, DE, family, Canby received a BA (1899) and PhD (1905) from Yale University. He began teaching English at Yale in 1900 and was editor of the Yale Review from 1911 to 1922. In 1920 he founded the Literary Review of the New York Post, which became an independent magazine, the Saturday Review of Literature, in 1924; he served as editor until 1936. He became editor in chief of the Book-of-the-Month Club on its founding in 1926. Canby married Marion Ponsonby Gause, also of Wilmington, in 1907, and they had two sons. Cather’s acquaintance with the Canbys seems to predate 1922, when her cordial correspondence with the Canbys began. In the Literary Review she published "The House on Charles Street" (1922) and in the Saturday Review a letter to Wilbur Cross on Shadows on the Rock (1931) and an essay on Thomas Mann (1936).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"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
