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 |
How thoughtful in you, my dear Trix1, to send me a lot of real, old fashioned home made candy! I haven't had any for years, and I have enjoyed it so.
I had a wonderful Christmas and many remembrances, but I am late in thanking
my friends because I have been terribly busy. A young man came over from
London to urge me to do do a rather special piece
of work3 for my English
publisher,4 and I have been hard at it. Just now my right hand has
gone back on me (the hand that was hurt five years ago)5 and I will have to rest it for a week or
two.
A Happy New Year to you and yours, dear friend of many years!
Willa Mrs. Sidney Florance1Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2959.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2959
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on the recto and verso. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Beatrix Mizer Florance 1
- Date letter was written
- January 19, 1945
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Sidney and Beatrice "Trix" Mizer Florance Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Individual Annotations
Cassell Co., London
Cather significantly injured a tendon in her right thumb in November 1940 after signing hundreds of copies of her novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl. Her right hand was immobilized for months afterward, and the pain recurred often in later years.
Person Annotations
Florance, Beatrix Elizabeth Mizer (1875-1963) (“Trixie,”
“Trix”). Cather’s childhood friend. Beatrix Mizer was born in
Ohio in a German-American family. They moved to Red Cloud, NE, in 1884.
Cather later recalled that when she first enrolled in school in Red Cloud,
“Trix Mizer was the prettiest little girl I had ever seen.” They acted
together in an 1888 production of “Beauty and the Beast” at the Red Cloud
Opera House. Mizer graduated from Red Cloud High School in 1893 and studied
voice at the Chicago Conservatory of Music 1897-1898, qualifying as a music
teacher, and at the Chicago College of Music 1899-1900. She married Sidney
Florance in 1903. In 1909 the couple moved to Red Cloud, where they settled
and raised a family. Beatrix’s Chicago musical studies and return to Red
Cloud may have inspired elements of Cather’s novel Lucy
Gayheart (1935). Cather’s correspondence with both Florances began
as early as 1914 and extended through the 1940s.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Hard Punishments (unpublished) by Willa Cather
