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 |
44-60 EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
NEW YORK2 May third 1911. Dear Mr. Braithwaite1:
Thank you for sending me Miss Eaton3's verses.
I like them, but they seem not exactly the kind of verse that we are most in need
of. We get a great deal more of what I might call "general poetry" than of specific
and definite verse. Consequently, we are overstocked with verse that relates to a
general sentiment rather than to a special experience; and of course it is not well
to be too overstocked.
with anything.
With regard to the article you are good enough to suggest, we absolutely never use descriptive or travel articles. I do not believe there has been one published in the history of the Magazine4.
We are fortunate in having a piece of verse5 by you in our June number.
Most cordially yours, Willa Sibert Cather Mr. William Stanley Braithwaite 223 West Canton St., Boston, Mass.6 Enc.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1992.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1992
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- William Stanley Braithwaite1
- Date letter was written
- May 3, 1911
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collection (Adams 138.6), Drew University Library, Special Collections and Archives, Madison, NJ
Person Annotations
Braithwaite, William Stanley (1878-1962). American writer,
anthologist, and critic. William Braithwaite was born in Boston,
MA; his father was from British Guiana, his mother was the daughter of an
enslaved person from North Carolina. He was forced to quit school at twelve
to work. He began to write poetry and essays, contributing to many
periodicals, including the Boston Evening Transcript,
of which he became the literary editor, and McClure’s
while Cather was editor. He edited many anthologies and included Cather’s
poem, “The Palatine” in his Anthology of Magazine Verse
for 1913 (1913), the first of an annual series he published from
1913 to 1939.
Eaton, Miss. American poet. In 1911, William Stanley Braithwaite forwarded verse by a Miss Eaton to Cather for possible publication in McClure’s Magazine, and she declined it. No additional information about Eaton is known.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
McClure's Magazine
"The Vision," McClure's Magazine (June 1911) by William Stanley Braithwaite
