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 |
35 FIFTH AVENUE
New York2 Dear Mr. Sterner1;
Certainly, you may use the sonnet4 if you wish—but I think you ought to say that I think the sonnet so exceedingly poor that I didn't include it when I republished5 many of the verses in that volume6. It's artificial, school-girl stuff. If you're a scholar7 you ought to know that.
Very truly yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1810.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1810
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Lewis George Sterner 1
- Date letter was written
- [1930]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
This letter responds to Sterner's request for permission to use Cather's work, which presumably came near the completion of his dissertation in 1930.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Lewis George Sterner Correspondence, University of Pennsylvania, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, Philadelphia, PA
Individual Annotations
Grosvenor Hotel (New York City): When Cather and Edith Lewis lost their 5 Bank Street apartment in 1927, they moved into the Grosvenor Hotel, where they continued to live until 1932. The hotel was located at 35 Fifth Avenue in the Manhattan borough of New York City.
Sterner included "Aftermath" in his dissertation but without the statement Cather suggested.
Person Annotations
Sterner, Lewis G. (1894-after 1966). American scholar. Lewis G. Sterner wrote his PhD dissertation, The Sonnet in American Literature (1930), at the University of Pennsylvania. He asked to use a sonnet from Cather’s April Twilights, one of the five sonnets which she had dropped from the first edition. Sterner later published anthologies of narrative verse and short stories and taught English at Frankford High School in Philadelphia, PA.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"Aftermath," April Twilights (1903), by Willa Cather
April Twilights and Other Poems (1923), by Willa Cather
April Twilights (1903), by Willa Cather
