Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 |
REFERRED TO _____
AUG 30 1922
ANSWERED BY _____
FILED BY _____ August 26th Dear Mr. Spier1:
Am I straining my credit with you to ask you send me six copies of a recent copy of the "Literary Digest"3 which seems to have had a good deal in it4 about me.5 I think it was last weeks, or the week before. I've had letters about it up here, but no copy of it has reached this island2.
I went to customs about the pap
stationary6
yesterday, and found it was not shipped from your office, but from the Fligen[?] Press—it was not properly packed and arrived
in a sad mess. There were no envelopes. If you have not ordered any, will you please
order me ten dozens, square ones, like the one I enclose, (but plain, with no
stamping) and hold them at your office for me until I return.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2534.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2534
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Franklin Spier1
- Date letter was written
- August 26 [1922]
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Cather-Knopf Correspondence, The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
In an essay reporting the results of a survey of critics, many of these critics named Cather as one of America's best authors.
See #2533.
Person Annotations
Spier, Franklin (1896-1973). American publishing and advertising executive. Born and raised in New York City, Franklin Spier received a BA from Columbia University in 1917. In the 1920s, he worked at Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., coordinating book reviewing and other promotion activities. In the 1930s he founded Franklin Spier, Inc. an advertising agency specializing in book promotion.
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
Literary Digest
"America's Literary Stars," Literary Digest (July 22, 1922)
