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 |
The dictation of the enclosed letter3 was interrupted and Miss Cather hurried out of town2 without finishing it. I have held the letter for her signature, but think it should not be delayed any longer. Your letter is on Miss Cather's desk, and you will hear from her very soon about future plans, etc.
Very truly yours, Sarah J. Bloom4Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1756.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1756
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only. Originally included #1755 as an enclosure.
- Person to whom letter was written
- E. K. Brown 1
- Date letter was written
- March 30, 1947
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Edward Killoran Brown Collection of Willa Cather (YCAL MSS 490), Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT
Individual Annotations
See #1755.
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.
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
