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 going into the hospital tomorrow for treatment and a long rest for my hurt hand3. I would have loved to autograph the books for you, but this time "the willing nerve is numb". When you send your book to the Byrds4, please say that I would especially have liked to autograph a book for them and I hope the book5 will not hurt any of the Admiral's Virginia6 feelings.
May you have a Happy Christmas. I shall not mind spending mine in the hospital. It will be such a release to shift all responsibility and give up the struggle. Miss Bloom7 will sign this letter for me, as I cannot even sign a check. My splints are too tight and too long.
Affectionately alwaysWILLA CATHER Per S. J. Bloom Secretary
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1518.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1518
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Fanny Butcher1
- Date letter was written
- December 21, 1940
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Fanny Butcher Papers, 1830-1984 (Midwest MS Butcher), Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Individual Annotations
Cather significantly injured a tendon in her right thumb in November 1940 after signing hundreds of copies of her novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl. Her right hand was immobilized for months afterward, and the pain recurred often in later years.
Person Annotations
Bokum, Frances Amanda Butcher (1888-1987) (“Fanny”).
American newspaper critic and bookstore owner. Born in Fredonia,
KS, Butcher moved to Chicago, IL, as a child. She received an A.A. from
Lewis Institute in 1908 and a BA from the University of Chicago in 1910. In
1911, Floyd Dell of the Chicago Evening Post assigned
her to review Alexander’s Bridge (1912). Cather wrote
the anonymous reviewer care of the Post, beginning
their correspondence and friendship. From 1913 until her retirement in 1963,
Butcher wrote for the Chicago Tribune, becoming
literary editor in 1922. She ran Fanny Butcher Books in Chicago from 1919
until 1927, when she sold it to Doubleday. Cather frequently saw Butcher
when she changed trains in Chicago and closely followed Butcher’s reviews of
her works, often writing to her about them. She also relied on Butcher’s
knowledge of the book business and particularly book distribution in the
Midwest. Their extant correspondence begins in 1920, although in her memoir
Many Lives—One Love (1972), Butcher
paraphrases earlier letters. Butcher married Richard Drummond Bokum in 1935.
Byrd, Richard Evelyn, Jr. (1888-1957). American naval officer and Arctic explorer. Born in Winchester, VA, into an old Virginia family, Richard Byrd, Jr., was educated at the Virginia Military Institute, the University of Virginia, and the U.S. Naval Academy. He married Marie Donaldson Ames in 1915; the couple had four children. Although an injury caused Byrd to be discharged from the Navy in 1916, he was put on active duty during World War I, serving with distinction in both the first and second World Wars and being promoted to admiral in 1929. In the Navy, he participated in aerial and oceanic exploration of both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. He died at his home in Beacon Hill in Boston, MA, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
1624Byrd, Marie Donaldson Ames (1889 -1974). Boston socialite and Admiral Byrd’s spouse. Born into an old Boston family and raised in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, Marie Donaldson Ames was educated at the Windsor School, Boston, and the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Paris. She married the young naval officer Richard Evelyn Byrd in 1915; the couple had four children. After the death of her husband, she helped to found the Byrd Foundation.
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
Work Annotations
Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940), by Willa Cather
