ALS Letter SIGNED By WILLA CATHER in Youth and the Bright Medusa 1st Edition

Description: Here is a rare opportunity to acquire a personal letter from one of the most beloved writers of the 20th century written just before her breakout success. From April through August, 1921 Willa Cather made a prolonged visit to her longtime intimate friend and lover Isabelle McClung Hambourg. This letter is on stationary bearing Mrs. Hambourg's Toronto address and mentions the visit. Also mentioned is favorite locale, writing retreat, and eventual Cather resting place Jaffrey, NH. Cather also refers to the June issue of Atlantic Monthly suggesting an article. The letter's recipient, Mary Woodbury of Boston Massachusetts, whom Cather seems to have known from shared time spent in Jaffrey, has partially mounted the letter on the rear paste down of her first edition copy of Youth and the Bright Medusa which had appeared the previous year and which have owner's marks dated just 8 days before the date of this letter. She has also saved many newspaper clippings about Willa Cather, which are now brittle and yellowed with age -as are the pages between which they were kept. Some were pasted into the book. Cather explicitly asked that her letters be destroyed. It was not until 2013 that the legal issues were overcome to allow the publication of a selection of her letters. An ongoing project to digitize the holdings of 4 major repositories of Cather letters is being undertaken by the University of Nebraska. The following description of Cather and McClung-Hambourg's relationship is from the Willa Cather Archive at the University of Nebraska: "Hambourg, Isabelle McClung (1877-1938). Cather’s longtime friend.Cather met Isabelle McClung, the daughter of a socially prominent, Pittsburgh (PA) family, in 1899 in the dressing room of actress Lizzie Hudson Collier. McClung seems to have been the first woman to reciprocate Cather’s romantic affections. In 1901, McClung invited Cather to live in her family’s large home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. She and Cather traveled together to Europe in 1902, and McClung accompanied Cather on a visit home to Nebraska in 1905. After Cather moved to New York City in 1906, she frequently visited McClung in Pittsburgh, finding the familiar house a congenial place to write, and McClung visited New York City, staying with Cather and Edith Lewis. Cather and McClung also rented a vacation cabin in Cherry Valley, NY, in 1911, and traveled together to Virginia in 1913. In late 1915, shortly after the death of her father, Judge Samuel McClung, Isabelle announced her intention to marry violinist Jan Hambourg. Cather reacted negatively to the marriage (which took place in 1916) but eventually reconciled herself to it, enjoying long visits with the Hambourgs in Toronto, Ontario, in 1921 and France in 1923 and 1935. Cather and Edith Lewis also spent time with the Hambourgs in Paris is 1930 and 1935. The latter trip occurred after Isabelle sought treatment in the U.S. for the kidney disease that killed her several years later in Italy. Her death came only four months after Cather’s brother Douglass died, leaving her feeling bereft. “No other living person cared as much about my work, through thirty-eight years,” she wrote her brother Roscoe (#2137). After Isabelle’s death, Jan sent to Cather the six hundred letters from Cather to Isabelle in his possession, and Cather destroyed them, although a few letters from Isabelle and Cather postcards to Isabelle are extant." 1 page ALS mounted in: Youth and the Bright Medusa by Willa Cather. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920. 303 pages. Hardback, bound in green cloth. Titled in blue on spine and front cover, with decoration of Medusa head. Top edge blue, deckled edges. No dust jacket. Textblock is solid, but cover shows signs of wear and age; bumped corners, top and bottom of spine softened, and darkened spine. In all a warm keepsake assemblage maintained by a fan and friend of this American literary icon. Will ship free Priority Mail, with insurance included.

Price: 1950 USD

Location: Glenside, Pennsylvania

End Time: 2024-02-29T19:02:57.000Z

Shipping Cost: N/A USD