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 recently returned from a long absence, and among the many reviews and articles awaiting me3 I find your interesting and very friendly pamphlet4. You have certainly brought a friendly and unprejudiced mind to my books, and though I do not always agree with you I am interested in all your opinions.
I think you make a very usual mistake, however, in defining a writer geographically.
Myself, I read a man (or a woman) for the climate of his mind, not for the climates
in which he has happened to live. The places in which he has lived do, to a certain
extent, color his mind,.
bBut to me the
Kipling5 of Captains Courageous6 is just as vigorous and
keen and full of his subject, as the
Kipling of the early Indian stories.
I think
yYou say that
the Southwest7 of the Archbishop8 is not so much
my country as the West of Nebraska9. I think
in your zeal to make your case, you have fallen into error. I knew the Southwest
early, and knew it long and well. I did not write about it earlier for one reason
only: the Southwest is so essentially and certainly
at its roots a Catholic country, that it
seemed to me no Protestant could handle material properly. (You understand that I
am
speaking here of the real Southwest, the Mexicans and
the Indians and the workers on the railroads. I am not speaking of the tourists and
cheap artists and dude ranches which have invfested that country and ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩
overwhelmed it since I first knew it.)
To go back to the other side of my parenthesis, I waited fifteen years for some Roman Catholic to write a book about the real New Mexicans, their religion and country, and some of those early French missionary priests10 who left such a fragrant tradition of tolerance and insight and kindly sympathy. Isn't it possible after all, that one may admire quite as sincerely a man of Father Latour's type as a man of Father Vaillant's? I am asking you to read a letter11 which I wrote concerning the actual writing of Death Comes for the Archbishop. You will find it on page 17 in the pamphlet enclosed12.
Very cordially yours, Willa CatherI must apologize for the enclosed pamphlet:—it is one my publisher13 uses as a reply to colleges and clubs who write to him for information.
Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1360.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1360
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, typewritten on recto of each leaf only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- E. K. Brown1
- Date letter was written
- April 9, 1937
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Burton Jesse Hendrick Papers (MS 1980), Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT
Individual Annotations
On 26 July 1936, Brown sent Cather an offprint of his scholarly journal article on her, reporting that moving to Chicago had inspired his interest in Cather's interpretation of the West. Sarah Bloom acknowledged his letter but did not forward it to her on Grand Manan, but Cather was back in New York City by October 1936.
Person Annotations
Brown, E. K. (1905-1951). Canadian scholar and literary critic.
Educated at the University of Toronto and the University of Paris,
Brown was an English professor at the University of Toronto, Cornell
University, and the University of Chicago. Among his many articles and
books, Brown is probably best known for his influential On
Canadian Poetry (1943). He and Cather began corresponding in 1937
after Brown sent her his essay “Willa Cather and the West.” Edith Lewis
subsequently commissioned him to write an authorized biography of Cather,
completed by Leon Edel after Brown’s early death and published by Knopf in
1953.
Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936). English fiction writer and poet.
Born in Bombay, India, to English parents, Kipling was sent to
England for his education but returned to India to work as a journalist. His
poems and short stories about India won him an audience in England, and he
settled in London in 1889. When he married Caroline Balestier in 1892, the
couple moved to her home state of Vermont. In 1896 Willa Cather claimed to
have met Kipling and she described the “46 minutes” of conversation with him
as “alone worth” her move to Pittsburgh to work for the Home Monthly (#0028). In 1899, Cather wrote a column about his
career for the Lincoln Courier, in which she noted
the irony of Kipling trying to “live a respectable Puritan life in Vermont
and be a full-fledged family man,” urging him to “Go back east.” In 1899, he
did leave the U.S., but for London, not India, where he remained the rest of
his life. McClure’s Magazine published Kipling’s poem
“The White Man’s Burden” (1899) and the novel Kim
(1900-1901), paying him $25,000 for serialization of the latter. When Cather
traveled to London on McClure’s business in 1909, she
carried a letter of introduction to him, but it is not clear whether she met
him again there. Throughout her life Cather expressed enthusiasm for
Kipling’s works, which she associated with a spirit of adventure, and her
letters make clear that she followed his life and career closely.
Lamy, Jean-Baptiste (1814-1888). French Roman Catholic Archbishop and missionary. Born in Lempdes in Auvergne, France, Jean-Baptiste Lamy attended the seminary of Clermont and then the seminary of Mont Ferrand, where he met fellow student Joseph Machebeuf. Lamy was ordained in 1838 and assigned to a parish in the town of Chapdes, France. In 1839, he and Machebeuf traveled to the U.S., where Lamy served at a parish in Danville, OH, for 8 years. In 1849, he was appointed the head of the newly formed Vicariate of New Mexico and appointed Machebeuf as his Vicar-General. Lamy finally arrived in New Mexico in 1851, where he conflicted with priests who had served under a Mexican bishop. The Vatican elevated Lamy to Archbishop of Sante Fe in 1875; he retired in 1884. During their 1925 trip to New Mexico, Willa Cather and Edith Lewis became interested in the lives of Lamy and Machebeuf, and Cather based Jean Marie Latour in Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) on Lamy.
1069Machebeuf, Joseph P. (1812-1889). French Roman Catholic Bishop and missionary. Born in Riom, France, Joseph Machebeuf entered the seminary of Mont Ferrand, where he met fellow student Jean-Baptiste Lamy. Machebeuf was ordained in 1836 and served as a curate in Le Cendre. In 1839, Machebeuf and Lamy traveled to the U.S., where Machebeuf served as a curate in Tiffin, OH and then in 1841 as a priest in Sandusky, OH. When Lamy was appointed the head of the newly formed Vicariate of New Mexico in 1849, he appointed Machebeuf as his Vicar-General. He served as priest at Albuquerque (1853–1858) and at Santa Fe (1858–1860) before being transferred to Colorado, where he was elevated Vicar Apostolic of Colorado and Utah in 1868 and then Bishop of Denver in 1887. During their 1925 trip to New Mexico, Willa Cather and Edith Lewis became interested in the lives of Lamy and Machebeuf, and Cather based Joseph Vaillant in Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) on Machebeuf.
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.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"Willa Cather and the West," University of Toronto Quarterly (1935-1936) by E. K. Brown
Captains Courageous (1896) by Rudyard Kipling
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather
"Letter from Willa Cather to the Editor of the Commonweal, A," Commonweal (November 27, 1927) by Willa Cather
Willa Cather: A Biographical Sketch, an English Opinion, and an Abridged Bibliography (1926) by Anonymous [Willa Cather]
