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 having a short, sharp tussle with a sore throat. After it's over I will answer your letter3 about Stephen4. He would do something very unusual in painting flowers and strange little creatures—the "underworld" of the forest is what he does best. If only he didn't know so many people, and write so many letters (and if he were not ill so often) he would develope a very individual style, I think.
Faithfully W. S. CInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1397.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1397
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Ferris Greenslet1
- Date letter was written
- February 2 [1938]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by corresponding letters from Houghton Mifflin staff.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944 (MSAm1925), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Individual Annotations
In #1393, Cather asked Greenslet for "a personal letter" about the publishability of Tennant's Leaves from a Missionary's Notebook (1937) in the U.S., but Greenslet sent two separate responses. On 26 January 1938, he described his personal acquaintance with Tennant and his stepfather. On 27 January 1938, he explained why Tennant's book was not "merchandise" suitable to Houghton Mifflin as a "conservative house" and suggested that Cather try Quincy Howe at the "brave young house" of Simon Schuster.
Person Annotations
Greenslet, Ferris (1875-1959). American editor and writer.
Born in Glens Falls, NY, Ferris Greenslet earned a BA (1897) from
Wesleyan University and a PhD (1900) from Columbia University. He served as
associate editor at the Atlantic Monthly from 1902 to
1907, and married Ella Stoothoff Hulst in 1903; they had two children,
Marguerite (born 1904) and George (born 1906). As an author he specialized
in biography. He became literary editor at Houghton Mifflin, the Boston
publisher of the Atlantic, c. 1908 and was socially
and professionally acquainted with Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett,
who may have introduced him to Cather. He evidently solicited Cather to
submit Alexander’s Bridge (1912), her first published
novel, to Houghton Mifflin. In 1910, when Greenslet became editor in chief
of the trade department, Roger Scaife divided his shares as a director of
the company with him, and the two presented themselves to authors as
partners, with Scaife handling book advertising and format and Greenslet
negotiating contracts and supervising editing; when Greenslet was absent
from the office, Scaife handled correspondence with Cather. Greenslet became
a director of Houghton Mifflin in 1919 and manager of the trade department
in 1933. Cather left Houghton Mifflin as a publisher for Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc., because she became dissatisfied with the production and advertising of
her books. However, she remained on cordial terms with Greenslet and
undertook several projects for him after her departure. Her extant letters
to him constitute one of the largest groups to a single correspondent.
Tennant, Stephen (1906-1987). British aesthete. Born at
Wilsford Manor in Wiltshire, England, Stephen Tennant was the fourth son of
Edward Priaulx Tennant, Baron Glenconner, a landowner and member of
Parliament, and Pamela Adelaide Genevieve Wyndam, a writer. After her first
husband’s death, his mother married the Viscount Grey of Fallodon. Educated
at home, Tennant attended the Slade School of Fine Art in 1922 and became
known for his flamboyance and decadence. He had a long romantic relationship
with poet Siegfried Sassoon. After breaking off his relationship with
Sassoon in 1932, he began writing Lascar: A Story of the
Maritime Boulevards, which was based on his travels in the south of
France and which he never completed. In 1927, British novelists Anne Douglas
Sedgwick arranged an epistolary introduction of Tennant to Cather, and they
corresponded for the rest of Cather’s life. In late 1935, he traveled to the
U.S. and met Cather and Edith Lewis in New York City, and Cather recommended
to him the Shattuck Inn in Jaffrey, NH. Cather found Lascar fascinating, and she attempted to help him find a U.S.
publisher for his Leaves From a Missionary’s Notebook
(1937), but she could not interest Knopf or Houghton Mifflin in his
decadent, risqué work. Cather made a bequest to Tennant in her will, and he
became close to Edith Lewis, who arranged for him to write the foreword to
Willa Cather on Writing (1949). He spent his
later years as a semi-invalid at Wiltshire Manor, where he died.
Place Annotations
