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 am sure that scrap book is somewhere around my old room3, probably in the closet opposite the desk. I vaguely remember having seen it, but have never had it up here. I am sure that if Miss Lewis4 looks she can find it for you.
I am glad you thought the April article5 amusing. I have rather got to the place where I can't see much that is amusing in anything. Science and this unnatural weather have been quite too much for me. I am more than anxious to see your Hughes6 article7, but the appeals I have sent to the office for an advance copy of the March number8 have not yet been answered.
Faithfully, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let3118.xml
- Letter identifier
- 3118
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Burton Hendrick 1
- Date letter was written
- February 14, 1908
- Place letter was written
- Boston, Massachusetts, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Burton Jesse Hendrick Papers (MS 1980), Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT
Individual Annotations
60 Washington Square (New York City): The address of Cather's first rented room in New York from 1906 to 1908. Located on the south side of Washington Square Park, Edith Lewis lived in the same building and was there when Cather visited her in 1904 and 1905. The building was in a cluster later called "Genius Row" due to the large number of writers and artists that lived there. Cather briefly returned to the address in the spring of 1912 before moving to 5 Bank Street later that fall.
Person Annotations
Hendrick, Burton Jesse (1870-1949). American magazine writer, editor, and biographer. Hendrick graduated from Yale in 1895 and worked as a newspaper journalist until 1905, when he became a staff writer at McClure’s Magazine. Cather blamed him for errors in the first serialized installment in McClure’s of a biographical exposé of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. In 1913 Hendrick became associate editor of the World’s Work, a public affairs magazine founded by Walter Hines Page. Having won the Pulitzer Prize in biography as co-author of Victory at Sea (1921) and author of The Life and Letters of Walter Hines Page (1922), he left the magazine in 1927 to pursue writing biographies and histories, winning a third Pulitzer for a follow-up Page biography. Doubleday, Page, and Company, of which Walter Page was a partner, published all of Hendrick’s books.
Lewis, Edith Labaree (1881-1972). Magazine editor,
advertising copywriter, and Cather's domestic partner. Born in
Lincoln, NE, to Henry Euclid Lewis and Lillie Gould Lewis, Edith Lewis
attended the preparatory school associated with the University of Nebraska,
earning college credits from the University before transferring to Smith
College in Northampton, MA, in 1899. She received an A.B. in English from
Smith in 1902 and returned home to teach elementary school. She met Willa
Cather in the summer of 1903 at the home of Sarah Harris, publisher of the
Lincoln Courier. Moving to New York City soon
afterward, Lewis settled into a studio on Washington Square and found work
at the Century Publishing Company. Cather was her guest when she visited the
city from Pittsburgh. In 1906, at Cather's suggestion, Lewis applied for a
position as an editorial proofreader at McClure's
Magazine, and the two women worked together on the McClure's staff for six years. In 1908, they moved
into a shared apartment at 82 Washington Place, and then, in 1912, to Five
Bank Street. Lewis left McClure's in 1915 to become
managing editor of Every Week Magazine, where she
stayed until the magazine folded in 1918. In 1919 she began a long career as
an advertising copywriter at the J. Walter Thompson Co. In 1926 Edith Lewis
acquired the land on which she and Cather built their cottage on Grand Manan
Island. When they lost their apartment on Bank Street to subway construction
in 1927, they shared quarters at the Grosvenor Hotel when they were both in
New York City. In 1932 they took an apartment at 570 Park Avenue. Throughout
their relationship, Lewis was closely involved in Cather's creative process,
reading and editing her work in pre-publication forms. Cather's will
appointed Lewis as executor of her literary estate and a beneficiary of her
literary trust. Lewis authorized E.K. Brown as Cather's first biographer and
published her own memoir of Cather, Willa Cather
Living (1953). She remained in their Park Avenue apartment after
Cather's death and died there after a long period of illness and invalidism.
She is buried at Cather's side in Jaffrey, NH.
Hughes, Charles Evans (1862-1948). American politician and Supreme Court Justice. Born in Glens Falls, NY, only child of David C. Hughes and Mary Connelly Hughes, Charles Evans Hughes graduated from Brown University and Columbia Law School and entered private practice. In 1888 he married Antoinette Carter; they had four children. In 1905 Hughes led investigations into corruption in public utilities and insurance companies, which led to reforms and to his election as governor of New York in 1906 and 1908. Burton Hendrick profiled him in McClure’s in 1908. Hughes was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1910; he resigned in 1916 to run for president, narrowly losing to Woodrow Wilson. He served as Secretary of State from 1920-25, re-entering private practice until President Hoover appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1930; he retired in 1941.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science," McClure's Magazine (1907 to 1908) by Georgine Milmine
"Governor Hughes," McClure's Magazine (March-April 1908) by Burton J. Hendrick
McClure's Magazine
