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 reply to your really kind and friendlty letter, let me urge you not
to undertake any translation until you have made your business arrangements. The
only safe merthod is to interest a French publisher to such an extent
that he will himself take up the matter with my publisher. The business
understanding should be clear before the translation is begun, otherwise it is a
heart-breaking business. Three of my
books3 are being done into French just now; ANTONIA4 was done5 some years ago.
I am travelling and have no secretary with me, so please excuse the bad typing. There is such a nice spirit in your letter that I want to reply to it myself.
Cordially yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2006.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2006
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Marine Leland 1
- Date letter was written
- September 4 [1931]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The conjectured year is deduced from Marine Leland's scholarly interest in French Canada and the fact that Shadows on the Rock, set in Quebec, was published on August 1, 1931.
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Marine Leland Papers, 1805-1984 (CA.MS.00077), Smith College, Smith College Archives, Northampton, MA
Individual Annotations
The specific translations Cather references here are unclear, but the next three books to be published in French were: Shadows on the Rock (1933), My Mortal Enemy (1935), and Death Comes for the Archbishop (1940).
Person Annotations
Leland, Marine (1899-1983). American professor of French. Born in Quebec City in Canada to American parents of English descent, Leland received her A.B. (1923), A.M. (1925), and PhD (1928) from Radcliffe College. She was a professor of French at Smith College in Northampton, MA, from 1924 to 1965. A leading authority on the French language and culture of Quebec, in the early 1940s she helped establish the North American French Section of the Modern Language Association. Leland wrote Cather very soon after the publication of Shadows on the Rock (1931), evidently proposing to translate it into French, but no translation by Leland appeared. They also corresponded about Canadian French.
Place Annotations
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
Work Annotations
My Ántonia (1918), by Willa Cather
Mon Antonia (1924), by Willa Cather; translated by Victor Llona
