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 |
Thank you for replying to my telegram, which I am afraid was premature. I have just recieved from the Knopf offices a copy of the estimate of my books3 published in the September Forum4. I wish I might know your personal opinion of the article before I write you.
Sincerely yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let3154.xml
- Letter identifier
- 3154
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Henry Goddard Leach 1
- Date letter was written
- August 20 [1931]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is based on Cather's discussion of Hicks's review of "Shadows on the Rock" in the September 1931 issue of the Forum.
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Sidney and Beatrice "Trix" Mizer Florance Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Person Annotations
Leach, Henry Goddard (1880-1970). American author, educator, and editor. Leach (Princeton University BA 1903, Harvard University PhD 1908) was a leading authority on Scandinavian literature. He served as editor of The Forum from 1923 to 1940 and president of the American-Scandinavian Foundation from 1926 to 1947. The Forum serialized Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and published “Double Birthday” (1929) in two parts. When Granville Hicks used a review of Shadows on the Rock (1931) in the Forum to launch what Cather perceived as an attack on her personally, she was aggrieved but accepted Leach’s apparent apology. It is not clear when Cather and Leach first met, and their extant correspondence relates exclusively to his work as editor of the Forum. However, in the 1940s she called him an “old friend” and apparently saw him socially in New York City (#2191).
Place Annotations
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
Work Annotations
"Bright Incidents," Forum (September 1931) by Granville Hicks
Forum
