Grant Overton ([March 12 or 19, 1925])

#3136: Willa Cather to Grant Overton, [March 12 or 19, 1925]

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⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ Thursday Dear Mr. Overton¹:

You are too clever by half! The theme is very like³ that of “Many Marriages”⁴—so much so that in joking to myself about it I threatened to call the story⁵ “Many Mansions." But please keep your sharp eye to yourself, or you’ll have the Freudians upon me with their odious comparisons and analysis, and our poor Professor will be put on the dissecting table. Unless you put them wise, which I trust you won’t, it will take them about five years to discover this, with none of the physiological words they love to guide them. Your letter gives me a joyful morning. I do like to write for you! It’s nice to be sending in copy to the man who saw beauty⁶ in “Antonia”⁷ when she was new-born and everyone else thought her ugly. That is the pleasantest thing about this transaction. It’s unique in my experience.

Faithfully yours Willa Cather

Information about this letter:

Source File:: cat.let3136.xml
Letter identifier: 3136
Contents: Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
Person to whom letter was written: Grant Overton¹
Date letter was written: [March 12 or 19, 1925]
Explanation of conjectured date: The conjectured dates for this letter are established by the incomplete record of the negotiations over the serialization of The Professor's House in Collier's Weekly. Internal records of Cather's literary agent, Paul Revere Reynolds, record that Collier's bought the serial rights for the novel on March 11, 1925. Cather was evidently responding to a flattering letter from Overton about this purchase, and it seems likely their exchange of letters took place within a week of the sale of the serial rights. The two conjectured dates are the two Thursdays after March 11, 1925.
Place letter was written: New York, New York, United States²
Location of original letter: Ann Safford Mandel Collection of Willa Cather Papers, 1925 (MRBC.MS.00435), Smith College, Mortimer Rare Book Room, Northampton, MA

Individual Annotations

Both The Professor's House and Sherwood Anderson's Many Marriages feature middle-aged male protagonists who are unhappy in their marriages.

In Overton's unsigned review of My Ántonia in the 6 October 1918 New York Sun, he praised Cather's handling of narrative technique and "the simple and perfect picture of pioneer life" drawn through Ántonia as a character.

Person Annotations

0641

Overton, Grant (1887-1930). American writer and editor. Born in New York, Overton worked for the New York Sun from 1906, serving as literary editor 1918-1919; Cather attributed the anonymous highly favorable review of My Ántonia in the Sun to Overton. He was an editor for the publisher George Doran, and from 1924 to 1927 he edited Collier’s Magazine, which serialized The Professor’s House in 1925. In addition to editing short story anthologies, Overton wrote biographical sketches of contemporary writers, including one of Cather in The Women Who Make Our Novels (1918). His 1928 substantially revised edition of this book reflects his conversations with Cather in 1925 about My Ántonia and The Professor’s House.

Place Annotations

New York, New York, United States

Work Annotations

Many Marriages (1923) by Sherwood Anderson

The Professor's House (1925) by Willa Cather

My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather