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 enclosing a letter from a lawyer3 who holds a very important position in Pittsburgh4, both as an attorney and as a member of one of the oldest and most solid and politically powerful families. I never knew him, but I have known some members of his family. The story he asks about, you published in a Christmas volume of short stories5 which you sent out about eight or nine years ago. The title of the story was "Double Birthday"6. If you can find a copy of that volume left in the stock rooms, would you be kind enough to send it to me? There was a thumbnail sketch of his aunt7 in the story - complimentary one. I would like to gratify his curiosity, if possible.
Please return Mr. Magee's letter, as there are other questions which I would like to answer. Tomorrow I go to the French Hospital8, to have my hand9 properly taken care of for the next two weeks, but all mail sent to 570 Park Avenue10 will reach me promptly.
I wish you a happier 1941 than any of us are likely to see.
Faithfully yours, WILLA CATHER Per S. J. Bloom11, SecretaryP.S. My secretary has to sign this letter for me, as my right hand is completely immobilized and I cannot even sign a check.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1520.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1520
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Ferris Greenslet1
- Date letter was written
- December 22, 1940
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944 (MS AM 1925), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Individual Annotations
It is not clear which of Magee's aunts may have served as a prototype for a character in "Double Birthday," although it seems likely that the characer in the story she is referring to is Margaret Parmenter.
In 1881 the French Hospital, established by the Société Française de Bienfaisance, opened at 131 West 14th Street, New York. In 1929 the hospital opened locations at 324-240 West 30th Street. Willa Cather stayed at the hospital in the spring of 1940 and returned in December that same year. Cather enjoying being surrounded by the French language and felt the hospital was an "escape from the active world" (#1514).
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.
570 Park Avenue (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis from December 11, 1932, until her death, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, near Central Park. They had apartment 7D. Lewis continued to live there until her own death.
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.
Magee, James McDevitt (1877-1949). American lawyer. James Magee was a graduate of Yale University (1899) and the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1902). As a lawyer in Pittsburgh, PA, he specialized in trusts and estates. He served in the U.S. Army Air Service during World War II and as a U.S. Congressman from the 35th district from 1923-27. Magee was from a later generation of the Magee political dynasty in Pittsburgh. He was the nephew of Christopher Lyman Magee, Jr., and great nephew of William Addison Magee, with whom Willa Cather was acquainted.
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
A Modern Galaxy: Short Stories (1930) by Dale Warren
"Double Birthday," Forum (February 1929) by Willa Cather
