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'm not fond of writing letters, but may I thank you for the glow of pleasure your
last volume3 has given me? Nobody ever sings
anymore—and when someone does (someone with a lovely voice) it makes one feel
quite young for a moment, even for a whole day, and following days. More than a
month ago I first got the book, in Canada4,
but I have read it many times since. Did you, perhaps, in your childhood have a
painted picture-book5 with a large picture6 showing red robins dropping russet leaves
on over the Babes in the Wood? I had such a
book. It's a beautiful allusion—quite melts one's
heart. You wouldn't have done it twenty years ago. Perhaps you will smile and say
that you did write it twenty years ago,—but I
should find it hard to believe you. But Nearly
everything in the book is very lovely. Just to hear anybody sing again – – – If one
has an authentic right to sing, one can gratify the ear as much in "Inert Perfection"7 as in "Not
So Far as the Forest"8. Again, thank you.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2485.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2485
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Edna St. Vincent Millay1
- Date letter was written
- October 10 [1939]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by the publication of Edna St. Vincent Millay's Huntsman, What Quarry? in May 1939.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Edna St. Vincent Millay Papers (MS006034), Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Individual Annotations
The illustration by Randolph Caldecott to which Cather is referring.
Person Annotations
Millay, Edna St. Vincent (1892-1950) (“Vincent”). American poet and playwright. Born in Rockland ME, to Henry Tollman Millay and Cora Buzzelle Millay, Edna St. Vincent Millay had her first poems published in the children’s magazine, St. Nicholas, when she was fourteen. In 1912, she entered her poem, “Renascence,” in a poetry contest; although it did not win, it attracted much attention, including that of an arts patron, who financed Millay’s education at Vassar College. Millay moved to Greenwich Village after her graduation in 1917, and became part of the literary and artistic life there. In 1923 she won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and also married Eugen de Boissevain, who supported her career. Willa Cather may have met Millay when they both spoke at Bowdoin College in 1925; Millay also made the presentation of the Prix Femina Américain to Cather in February 1933. In 1939, Cather wrote to Millay to express her admiration for Millay’s most recent volume of poetry, Huntsman, What Quarry?
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Huntsman, What Quarry? (1939) by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Babes in the Wood : One of R. Caldecott's Picture Books (1879) by Randolph Caldecott
"Inert Perfection," Huntsman, What Quarry? (1939) by Edna St. Vincent Millay
"Not So Far as the Forest," Huntsman, What Quarry? (1939) by Edna St. Vincent Millay
