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 |
AIX-LES-BAINS
(SAVOIE) August 21
I can't, my dear Louise1, write letters, and this is not a letter but a salute, to tell you that I often think of you and hope your western trip came out well. I am resting here2 for three weeks after very exciting and rather fatiguing travels in Provençe4 and along the Mediterranean coast of France5. Then, instead of going on to Rome6, I came to Aix, which is the best place I know in the whole world to do nothing—the only place where I can be absolutely happy doing nothing. Here I get more indolent every day. I'm sailing on Sept. 20, but for Quebec7 by the Empress of Scotland, and I hope not to put my foot in New York3 until this confounded book8 is done9.
My love to you, my dear. Oh yes, your green scarf10 is simply worn out with wearing!
W. S. C. Shadows onthe Rock Mrs. Bryson Burroughs1
MUSEUM OF ART
RECEIVED
SEP 4 1930
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2892.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2892
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Louise Guerber Burroughs1
- Date letter was written
- August 21 [1930]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather's 1930 trip to Europe.
- Place letter was written
- Aix-les-Bains, Rhône-Alpes, France2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collection (Burroughs 26), Drew University Library, Special Collections and Archives, Madison, NJ
Individual Annotations
Cather's time in Paris on this trip and her return via Quebec were designed to support her writing of Shadows on the Rock, which is set in Quebec with a flashback to Paris.
In #2891, Cather thanks Burroughs for the gift of this scarf.
Person Annotations
Burroughs, Ella Louise Guerber (1900-1985) (“Louise”). American librarian and curator. Ella Louise Guerber was born in Allentown, PA, and graduated from Cedar Crest College in 1919 and then the library school at Columbia University. At the time she met Cather in 1925, she was a reference librarian at the Denver Public Library and assisted Cather with her research on Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927). In 1926, Guerber moved to New York City to take a position at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she saw Cather frequently in person. She married Bryson Burroughs, Curator of Paintings, in 1928; he died in 1934. In 1950, when she received an honorary degree from Cedar Crest, she was Associate Curator of Paintings at the Met. After her retirement, she moved to Baltimore, MD, and then Princeton, NJ, where she died. Her friendship with Cather is documented by more than seventy letters from Cather to Burroughs from 1925 through Cather’s late life and by a diary documenting her in-person interactions with Cather from 1925 through 1927.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Shadows on the Rock (1931) by Willa Cather
