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 |
How good you were to mention me in the preface of your beautiful book4! It just reached me today, forwarded from Pittsburgh5. Three of the stories,—including the wonderful first one6 of the volume,—I know well. By tomorrow I shall know the others. (So slow we write alas, so quick we read!)
Won't you please come to see me on the very first Friday afternoon you can? May7 and Marie Willard8 have just left me. I don't know how far away Roselle N.J.9 may be, but I boldly ask you to make the trip on a Friday.
Most cordially yours Willa CatherAt home on Friday afternoons until May first.
Miss Willa Sibert Cather Fridays Five Bank Streetnear 7th Ave. and 11th St
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2016.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2016
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only. Includes two enclosed calling cards.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Harrison G. Dwight 1
- Date letter was written
- April 5 [1916]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by the publication of Dwight's book Stamboul Nights (1916).
- Accompanying this letter
-
Includes two enclosed calling cards with handwritten messages on recto of each. The calling card on the top contains a handwritten message to Dwight from Isabelle McClung Hambourg, while the bottom includes a handwritten note from Cather.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Harrison Griswold Dwight Papers, 1890-1959 (MA.00012), Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst, MA
Individual Annotations
5 Bank Street (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis beginning in 1912, located in Greenwich Village in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Subway construction forced Cather and Lewis to relocate in 1927.
Person Annotations
Dwight, Harrison Griswold (1875-1959). American writer and diplomat.
Dwight was born in Constantinople, Turkey, to a missionary family.
His early education was abroad, but he graduated from Amherst College in
Amherst, MA, in 1898. He joined the consular service and later worked as a
translator during World War I. Cather apparently met him in 1906 in
connection with editorial work at McClure’s Magazine.
Cather and Dwight occasionally met socially; he apparently also knew
Cather’s Pittsburgh friends, Mary and May Willard. Her letters often report
her reactions to his work, including Stamboul Nights
(1916), which drew on his experience in the Middle East.
Willard, Elisa May (1868-1941) (“May”). Librarian; Cather’s Pittsburgh friend. Born in Vermont, Willard graduated from Smith College in 1894, attended the New York State Library School from 1894-1895, and then moved to Pittsburgh to work at the Carnegie Library, where she served as Reference Librarian for twenty-two years. May Willard, Ethel Litchfield, Isabelle McClung, and Cather formed, as she wrote in a condolence letter to May’s sister Mary, a “little group” that “melted together” (#1540). Willard retired in 1917 and moved to California. Although only one letter from Cather to Willard is extant, they remained friends, and Willard visited Cather in New York City. She died in San Francisco, CA.
Willard, Mary (1857-1944) (“Marie”). Elisa May Willard’s sister. Born in Vermont, Mary Willard lived, for a time, in Pittsburgh, PA, with her sister Elisa May Willard, Willa Cather’s close friend during her years in the city; however, it is not clear whether Mary lived in Pittsburgh before Cather’s move to New York City in 1906. The sisters later moved to California. Mary died in San Francisco, CA.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Stamboul Nights (1916) by Harrison Griswold Dwight
"The Leopard of the Sea," Stamboul Nights (1916) by Harrison Griswold Dwight
