Saturday, December 7, 2024

On Willa Cather’s birthday

Willa Cather was born on this day in 1873.

From a letter to William Lyon Phelps, critic and professor, May 29, 1943. Phelps has sent along a comment from J.M. Barrie about A Lost Lady. In her reply, Cather recalls that, through a friend, Barrie had used “gentle pressure” to secure an autographed copy of My Ántonia :

I did not take it seriously, for I don’t think writers often care about autographed copies. (After all, isn’t the one real and only autograph in the book itself, on every page of it?)
But Cather sent a signed copy.

Heber Taylor has also taken note of Cather’s birthday.

Related reading
All OCA Cather posts (Raindrop.io) : All OCA posts from Cather’s letters

[A Lost Lady was published in 1923, and Barrie died in 1937. The Pinboard link does a search — no account needed.]

comments: 0