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 |
I am travelling and can't struggle with the many letters coming in just now,
but my secretary4 sends on a few she
thinks I might like to see, and I want to thank you for yours. I can always
tell, of course, when the person writing me has really got something out of
my books, and when they think merely think
they have! I'm awfully glad you got something real out of them.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2479.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2479
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Ruth D. James1
- Date letter was written
- August 23 [1931]
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collection (Cather 19), Drew University Library, Special Collections and Archives, Madison, NJ
Person Annotations
James, Ruth D. American reader. While definitive identification is not possible, the reader Willa Cather addressed as Miss Ruth D. James (#2479), may be Ruth Jane Day James (1897-1962), born in East Orange, NJ, who married Arthur Edward James in 1911 and who lived in Maplewood, NJ, in 1940.
Bloom, Sarah J. (1889-1961). Cather's personal secretary. Born in New York in 1889 to Russian immigrants Solomon and Bertha Bloom, Sarah J. Bloom worked for Cather from some time in the 1920s until Cather's death and continued to work for Edith Lewis on matters pertaining to Cather's literary estate thereafter. Bloom typed Cather's literary manuscripts and managed Cather's correspondence, typing dictated letters and sometimes responding for Cather when she was traveling. Bloom’s work for Cather supplemented full-time office employment in New York City (for many years she worked for the New York State Public Service Commission). She thus came to Cather and Lewis's apartment on weekends to take dictation, pick up and deliver typescripts, and deliver typed letters for signature. She died in New York city in 1961.
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.
