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 |
In answer to your telegram, I have a long short story3
done through the first writing, and the Forum4 may
have the first reading of it when I get the story into final shape. I don't know how soon I'll have time to work again. My
father5 has been very ill again, and my
mind has been on w things here at home. I'll be in
New York6 in about two weeks.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1838.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1838
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Eunice Chapin 1
- Date letter was written
- February 15 [1928]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Charles F. Cather's death on March 3, 1928, and the publication of "Double Birthday" in the February 1929 issue of the Forum.
- Place letter was written
- Red Cloud, Nebraska, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Caspersen 52, Drew University Library, Special Collections and Archives, Madison, NJ
Person Annotations
Larkin, Eunice Chapin (1896-1978). American magazine editor, novelist, and screenwriter. Born and raised in Lincoln, NE, Eunice Chapin graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1915 and received a fellowship for graduate study in French at Bryn Mawr College. She became a friend of Willa Cather’s sister Elsie Cather during her studies at the University of Nebraska. In New York City Chapin worked as literary editor of the Forum from c. 1924 until she became managing editor of McCall’s in spring 1928. She corresponded with Cather about the serialization of Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and “Double Birthday” (1929) in the Forum. The success of her novel Pick Up (1931) led her to leave magazine work, move to Hollywood, CA, and become a screenwriter. She married fellow screenwriter John Francis Larkin in 1932. They frequently visited Lincoln with their twin daughters, Bourke and Morgan, and are buried in Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln.
Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father.
Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back
Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers
who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War.
He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters,
in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and
Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where
various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the
county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an
insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe,
Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and
John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very
warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially
enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week
after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of
heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"Double Birthday," Forum (February 1929), by Willa Cather
Forum
