LETTER: ALS to Dr. Lynch re Death Come for the Archbishop.
On Archbishop
Before Publication
Cather, Willa. Autograph letter signed, “Willa Cather” to “Doctor [Henry Goddard] Leach”; Jaffrey, N.H., October 7 [ca. 1926]; one leaf of stationery stamped with Cather’s initials, recto only; and with two holes punched at the top (not affecting text). In a specially made quarter-morocco slipcase.
Cather writes to Leach, the editor of Forum, regarding a proposed note and prologue to appear in the serialized version of Death Comes to the Archbishop (1927). Cather’s letter reads in full:
I am sending you the first installment of The Archbishop today in a shabby wrapper. I shall use this note in the front of the book – you can use your discretion about using it before the serial. A note and then a prologue may be too much. Why not, in some editorial comment of your own, remark that Miss Cather says – and then quote this note just as I have written it, for I have tried to exactly put what relation this narrative bears to history.
Unfortunately, the note she mentions is not included here. Her postscript reads, “This history of that region and period are so little known that of course there will be questions, people will be puzzled.”
Cather seems to have sent Leach the first of six serial installments of Archbishop. According to Joan Crane, Cather’s bibliographer,
DCA was first published serially in the Forum 77, nos. 1-6 (January-June 1927)
[CCC 4] before publication. The periodical publication was illustrated with drawings by Harold von Schmidt, who illustrated the second edition (A16.b.i.). Though the serial text is essentially the same as that of the first book printing and no major revision occurs, over 200 alterations were made before the book plates were set, and, of these, at least 100 are substantive. (Crane, A16a.i.; pp. 129)
Cather’s note on the dateline that she was writing from Jaffrey N.H. is significant. Cather first vacationed in Jaffrey in 1917; she planned to stay for three weeks and ended staying for two months to work on My Antonia. She returned to Jaffrey regularly, staying in the same room at the Shattuck Inn each time.
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