LETTER: TLS to Miss Speiser re My Antonia.
On My Antoniá
Cather, Willa. Typed letter signed. “Willa Cather" to “Miss Speiser”; n.p.; n.d (ca. autumn, 1943); one leaf of plain paper, recto only; top margin shaved. In a specially made cloth folder.
Cather writes to Jean Speiser, a photographer and editorial assistant at Life magazine, regarding her request for Cather’s help with providing photographs of Nebraska, presumably for a photojournalistic essay on the state. Cather explains her reasons for refusing:
I can understand that you wish to make photographs of Nebraska, but I do not see how you can reasonably expect me to assist you in this. “My Antoniá”, the book to which you refer, was written twenty-five years ago, and was an attempt to recall the impressions of childhood. The scene was presented in the kindly light of memory. The characters were types rather than individuals: some were entirely imaginary, some were composites, and some were affectionate portraits of people who had long been dead when I wrote the book. Please accept this as a definite and final refusal of your enthusiastic invitation.
Cather goes on to suggest someone who might be able to assist Miss Speiser:
I wonder why you have not selected Mari Sandoz’s book, “Old Jules?” Miss Sandoz came from a more picturesque part of the State than was the little farming community in which I grew up, and her book deals with a pioneer stage of development in the State. I never met Miss Sandoz, but if she would collaborate with you, I think her book would make a good background for photographs of western Nebraska.
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