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 find I don’t remember the exact address of the Forum3 offices; will you therefore please telephone Dr. Leech4 (or is it Leach?) and ask him to send me the manuscript of the Archbishop5 he has in his safe just as soon as possible6. Ask him to send it to me at The Shattuck Inn7, Jaffrey, N. H.8, where I go day after tomorrow.
If the Literary editors of newspapers ask you for my address, please tell them you will forward letters to me, but don’t give out my address unless it’s something very important. Please send me the exact address of the Forum.
Faithfully yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2571.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2571
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Mr. Wood1
- Date letter was written
- [September 9, 1926]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The date of this letter is established by Wood's response dated 11 September 1926; 9 September 1926 was the preceding Thursday.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Cather-Knopf Correspondence, The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
On 11 September 1926, Wood assured Cather that Leach's secretary promised to send the manuscript of Death Comes for the Archbishop to her in Jaffrey and not to divulge her address to the press (the Forum would serialize Death Comes for the Archbishop in 1927).
Shattuck Inn (Jaffrey, NH): Hotel built in 1910 in Jaffrey, N,H owned and operated by E. C. Shattuck until his death in February 1933, when operation was taken over by his daughter, Eleanor Shattuck Austermann, and her husband George Austermann. Cather stayed at the Shattuck Inn many times, often with Edith Lewis, finding it a useful place to work. In 1947, Cather wrote of the Shattuck Inn: “I have never found any place where I could work in such peace and happiness as in the little rooms up in the top of the Shattuck Inn” (#1748).
Person Annotations
Wood, Mr. Employee of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Cather wrote to Mr. Wood in 1927 about Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and publicity matters.
Leach, Henry Goddard (1880-1970). American author, educator, and editor. Leach (Princeton University BA 1903, Harvard University PhD 1908) was a leading authority on Scandinavian literature. He served as editor of The Forum from 1923 to 1940 and president of the American-Scandinavian Foundation from 1926 to 1947. The Forum serialized Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and published “Double Birthday” (1929) in two parts. When Granville Hicks used a review of Shadows on the Rock (1931) in the Forum to launch what Cather perceived as an attack on her personally, she was aggrieved but accepted Leach’s apparent apology. It is not clear when Cather and Leach first met, and their extant correspondence relates exclusively to his work as editor of the Forum. However, in the 1940s she called him an “old friend” and apparently saw him socially in New York City (#2191).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Forum
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather
