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 have just returned from Washington3, and find your letter awaiting me. I cannot answer all your questions, but I can tell you briefly what I know concerning the bust of Keats4 which Mrs. Fields5 bequeathed me.
I think Mrs. Fields told me that Mr. Fields6 had this plaster bust made from the life bust of Keats in the Hampstead Church7, and that they brought it home in their own cabin. She never told me anything about there being a second bust in Boston8, or about exchanging one bust for another. I am not able to find any scratches on the nose or chin. One's memory is not always truthful, but from what Mrs. Fields said, I have always thought that this cast was made from the marble in Hampstead Church. I had then no idea that I was to inherit the bust, so I did not question Mrs. Fields particularly.
Very sincerely yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2966.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2966
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Louis Arthur Holman1
- Date letter was written
- December 18, 1936
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Louis Arthur Holman collection of Keats iconography and related papers (MS Keats 10), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Individual Annotations
St. John-at-Hampstead Church, in Church Row, London, England, contained Anne Whitney's marble replica of a bust of Keats, presented to the parish in 1894 as the first memorial to Keats on English soil.
Person Annotations
Holman, Louis Arthur (1866-1939). American illustrator. Born on Prince Edward Island, Canada, to James Ludlow Holman and Ada Longmaid Holman, Louis Holman first worked in Canadian bookselling and publishing. In 1889 he moved to Boston, MA, to attend the Cowles Art School. Holman became art editor of New England Magazine and the Youth’s Companion and contributed illustrations and articles to other publications. In 1915 he started a print department at Goodspeed’s Book Shop and in 1930 started Holman’s Print Shop. Holman was an expert on John Keats and developed a sizable collection of Keatsiana, which toured the U.S. and England in the early 1900s. He wrote to Willa Cather in 1936 to inquire about a plaster bust of Keats which she had inherited from Annie Fields.
Keats, John (1795-1821). British poet. Born in London, England, to Thomas and Frances Jennings Keats, John Keats was educated at the Enfield Academy. Apprenticed to a surgeon in 1811, in 1814 he became a junior house surgeon at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ hospitals. Best known as a Romantic lyric poet, during his short life Keats published three volumes of poetry, the first of which was Poems by John Keats (1817). Cather was a Keats enthusiast. She alludes to Keats in her works, including in “A Death in the Desert” (1903). Annie Fields arranged for Cather and George Woodberry to view Amy Lowell’s famous private collection of Keats letters and manuscripts c. 1913, but Lowell refused to allow them to touch the documents (#1595). When Fields died, she bequeathed her bust of Keats to Cather.
Fields, Annie Adams (1835-1915). Literary hostess, author, and social
reformer. At age 20, Annie Adams married James T. Fields,
partner in the Boston publishing house of Ticknor & Fields. Both before
and after her husband’s death in 1881, Fields often entertained important
American, British, and European authors at her home at 148 Charles Street in
Boston, MA. After James’ death, Sarah Orne Jewett, whose books were
published by Ticknor & Fields, began sharing Annie’s homes at 148
Charles Street and Manchester-on-the-Sea, MA. Cather met Fields in Boston in
1908, a meeting Cather described in "The House on Charles Street," an essay
reviewing Memories of a Hostess (a volume of
selections from Fields' journals, 1922). A revised version of this essay,
retitled "148 Charles Street," appeared in Not Under
Forty (1936). After Jewett’s death in 1909, Fields edited The Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), which
included several letters to Cather. Fearing that 148 Charles Street would
become a museum after her death, Fields requested that it be torn down.
Fields, James T. (1817-1881). American publisher, editor, and writer.
New Hampshire-born Fields is best known as a partner in the Boston,
MA, publishing house of Ticknor & Fields (established 1854), which
published the works of notable American authors, such as Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, and Harriet Beecher
Stowe. Although U.S. copyright law did not require the firm to pay British
authors for their works, he paid royalties to British authors such as Alfred
Tennyson and Charles Dickens. In 1859 his firm acquired the Atlantic Monthly magazine and Fields himself edited
it from 1861 to 1871. In 1854, the widowed Fields married young Annie Adams,
who survived him by many years. In Willa Cather’s essay about her friendship
with Annie Adams Fields “The House on Charles Street” (1922), revised as
“148 Charles Street” (1936), she reflects on her encounters in childhood
with books published by James Fields.
Place Annotations
