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 |
GRAND MANAN
NEW BRUNSWICK
CANADA August 24th Dear Helen McAfee1;
Thank you for your note of June 17th! You are probably abroad now, but I'm just beginning to acknowledge notes. Edith5 and I have had a glorious summer up here2, doing new things to our little house and taking long tramps. I've managed, among other things, to do a story6 that I've wanted to try7 my hand at for a long time. I hope you like the new book8 better than most of the N.Y.9 reviewers do10—I've not seen many, but most of them mourn for what is not, and are convinced that I mean to write about old apothecarys to the end of my days.
With affectionate greetings Willa Cather WHALE COVE GRAND MANAN2 NEW BRUNSWICK CANADA Miss Helen McAfee1 The Yale Review3 New Haven4 Connecticut U. S. A. (P. O. Box 1729) NORTH HEAD N. B.2 AU 26 31 AMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2034.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2034
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Helen Flora McAfee1
- Date letter was written
- August 24 [1931]
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collected Materials (MS008), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
Cather finished both "Old Mrs. Harris" and "Two Friends," stories published in Obscure Destinies (1932), on Grand Manan in the summer of 1931. Her 3 September 1931 letter to Alfred Knopf suggests she believed "Two Friends" to be the superior accomplishment (see #2636), and she is likely referring to that story here.
Shadows on the Rock received a mixed response from critics, with negative reviews appearing in several New York-based publications, including the New York Times Book Review (John Chamberlain's "Willa Cather's Tale of Canada," 2 August 1931), the New York Herald Tribune Books (Carl Van Doren's "Willa Cather's New Chronicle of Virtue," 2 August 1931), the New Republic (Newton Arvin's "Quebec, Nebraska and Pittsburgh," 12 August 1931), and the Forum (Granville Hicks's "Bright Incidents," September 1931), among others. Cather so objected to Hicks's review that she wrote a complaint letter to Henry Goddard Leach, editor of the Forum (#1842).
Person Annotations
McAfee, Helen Flora (1884-1956). American editor. McAfee was born in Marblehead, CT, and in 1903 graduated from Smith College, where she and Edith Lewis belonged to the same literary society. She taught English in New Haven, CT, from 1903 to 1909, taking graduate courses in English at Yale University from 1908 to 1909. She served as head of the English department of the American College for Girls in Constantinople, Turkey, from 1909 to 1912. On returning to graduate studies at Yale, she worked as editorial assistant at the Yale Review. She earned her A.M. in 1914, and Yale University Press published her thesis Pepys on the Restoration Stage in 1916. She continued as assistant editor of the Yale Review under Wilbur Cross and later became managing editor. She corresponded widely with authors, including Willa Cather, seeking contributions, and also wrote articles and reviews.
Lewis, Edith Labaree (1881-1972). Magazine editor,
advertising copywriter, and Cather's domestic partner. Born in
Lincoln, NE, to Henry Euclid Lewis and Lillie Gould Lewis, Edith Lewis
attended the preparatory school associated with the University of Nebraska,
earning college credits from the University before transferring to Smith
College in Northampton, MA, in 1899. She received an A.B. in English from
Smith in 1902 and returned home to teach elementary school. She met Willa
Cather in the summer of 1903 at the home of Sarah Harris, publisher of the
Lincoln Courier. Moving to New York City soon
afterward, Lewis settled into a studio on Washington Square and found work
at the Century Publishing Company. Cather was her guest when she visited the
city from Pittsburgh. In 1906, at Cather's suggestion, Lewis applied for a
position as an editorial proofreader at McClure's
Magazine, and the two women worked together on the McClure's staff for six years. In 1908, they moved
into a shared apartment at 82 Washington Place, and then, in 1912, to Five
Bank Street. Lewis left McClure's in 1915 to become
managing editor of Every Week Magazine, where she
stayed until the magazine folded in 1918. In 1919 she began a long career as
an advertising copywriter at the J. Walter Thompson Co. In 1926 Edith Lewis
acquired the land on which she and Cather built their cottage on Grand Manan
Island. When they lost their apartment on Bank Street to subway construction
in 1927, they shared quarters at the Grosvenor Hotel when they were both in
New York City. In 1932 they took an apartment at 570 Park Avenue. Throughout
their relationship, Lewis was closely involved in Cather's creative process,
reading and editing her work in pre-publication forms. Cather's will
appointed Lewis as executor of her literary estate and a beneficiary of her
literary trust. Lewis authorized E.K. Brown as Cather's first biographer and
published her own memoir of Cather, Willa Cather
Living (1953). She remained in their Park Avenue apartment after
Cather's death and died there after a long period of illness and invalidism.
She is buried at Cather's side in Jaffrey, NH.
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
Yale Review
"Two Friends," Woman's Home Companion (July 1932) by Willa Cather
Shadows on the Rock (1931) by Willa Cather
