Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 |
Your princely gift arrived on Monday night. On Tuesday I rushed to the Western Union office to express my gratitude and delight at the sight of such a beautiful bird. On no account would the operator send my message—though I tried to make it sound "business like"! Well, we have been eating the bird ever since!
On the first night I had an old friend from Pittsburgh3 to carve the bird, and a very special year Krug Champagne which Alfred Knopf4 sent me lately. (For the last few weeks I have been enjoying food and drink as I used to do. Before that it was hard sledding.) Tonight we have cold turkey, tomorrow turkey hash.
The apricot jam I've not opened yet, but it looks like a jar full of sunlight—and of kindness. I can't thank you enough, my dear. The food problem here has been tough. Everything killed only yesterday, or released from a year in cold storage!
Hastily, but gratefully Willa Mrs. Hugo Rumbold1 2041 Brigden Road Pasadena5 California NEW YORK, N.Y.2 FEB 6 1943 330 PMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1611.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1611
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins 1
- Date letter was written
- [February 5, 1943]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Zoë Akins papers 1878-1959 (mssZA 1-7330), Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
Person Annotations
Akins, Zoë (1886-1958). American poet, playwright, and screenwriter.
Akins’ friendship with Cather started in 1909, when she submitted
verse to McClure’s magazine, which Cather rejected,
advising her to stay with playwriting. Akins subsequently moved from her
hometown of St. Louis, MO, to New York City and achieved success as a
playwright. She moved to California in the 1930s, adding screenwriting to
her accomplishments. Her play The Old Maid (1935), an
adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. In
1932, Akins married Captain Hugh Rumbold, a British theatrical designer and
director; he died eight months later. Cather and Akins carried on a lifelong
correspondence, with Cather writing affectionate letters that included both
commentary on her own works and criticism of Akins’.
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
