![CATHER, Willa S. (1873-1947). Typescript draft of her last novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl, WITH MANY PENCILLED ADDITIONS, REVISIONS AND CORRECTIONS BY THE AUTHOR on some 150 pages, including a total of about 850 words added in manuscript, plus occasional deletions of words, phrases and whole blocks of text and numerous changes in punctuation, spelling or capitalization. N.p., n.d. [New York, published 1940].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2004/NYR/2004_NYR_01450_0504_000(094822).jpg?w=1)
THE PROPERTY OF A LADY
CATHER, Willa S. (1873-1947). Typescript draft of her last novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl, WITH MANY PENCILLED ADDITIONS, REVISIONS AND CORRECTIONS BY THE AUTHOR on some 150 pages, including a total of about 850 words added in manuscript, plus occasional deletions of words, phrases and whole blocks of text and numerous changes in punctuation, spelling or capitalization. N.p., n.d. [New York, published 1940].
Details
CATHER, Willa S. (1873-1947). Typescript draft of her last novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl, WITH MANY PENCILLED ADDITIONS, REVISIONS AND CORRECTIONS BY THE AUTHOR on some 150 pages, including a total of about 850 words added in manuscript, plus occasional deletions of words, phrases and whole blocks of text and numerous changes in punctuation, spelling or capitalization. N.p., n.d. [New York, published 1940].
205 pages, including title-page and a 16-page Epilogue ("Nancy's Return: Epilogue in the First Person"), mostly carbon typescript, typed on rectos only, double-spaced, lacking pp. 35, 110 and 15 of the Epilogue (the later two breaks recorded by Cather in pencilled notes on pp.[111] and 16 of the Epilogue), last 3 leaves a bit frayed at margins, 10 leaves in Epilogue with small rust-stains from removed paperclip, partially and inconsistently paginated in typescript and in manuscript (p. 166 skipped, p. 167 duplicated), and with an extra sectional title in pencil added between pp. 127 and 128.
THE MANUSCRIPT OF CATHER'S 'SAPPHIRA AND THE SLAVE GIRL,' HER LAST, INTENSELY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL, SET IN ANTE-BELLUM VIRGINIA: "A TRIUMPHANT ACHEIVEMENT AT THE END OF A LONG AND DISTINGUISHED CAREER"
This typescript constitutes THE ONLY SURVIVING SOURCE FOR THIS NOVEL, which a recent biographer terms "a triumphant acheivement at the end of a long and distinguished career" (J. Woodress, Willa Cather: A Literary Life, 1987). The typecsript's survival was hiterto unsuspected and it has never been available for systematic study by scholars. In the Spring of 1937, Cather had begun to write Sapphira, her ninth and last novel, and, with various interruptions, against an ominous background of the start of World War II, continued to work on it until publication bu Knopf in December 1940. The story is set in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley in 1856, and its vivid characters--both African-American and white--were drawn from Cather's childhood memories, family stories about ante-bellum life, and anecdotes about the small group of slaves owned by the family in the years before the Civil War. One of these slaves, Nancy Till, had, as a young woman, been helped to freedom by certain family members. At the age of five, Willa had actually witnessed Nancy's return visit to the family home for an emotional reunion with her mother and the former slave-holders. This event, one biographer terms "the most memorable event of Cather's childhood...It all happened just as she told it..." (J. Woodress, p.26). The novel, in fact, offers one of the more sensitive portrayals of African-Americans of its period; it is refreshingly clear of stereotyping, and Cather exhibits a finely tuned ear for black speech. She makes no effort, though, to write a polemic on the evils of chattel slavery, whose evils are, in any case, implicit in the narrative itself. And "the whole history of slavery and the patriarchal social structure of the old South is encapsulated in the story of Jezebel's life" (Woodress, p.485).
During its writing, Cather even revisited her childhood home in Virginia in the spring of 1938, to refresh her memories of the locality. Once she had begun the novel, "so much came back to her that she wrote a great deal more than she used." Her friend and later executor Edith Lewis recalled that Willa "'could have written two or three Sapphiras out of her material; and in fact she did write, in her first draft, twice as much as she used'" (Woodress, p.481). The present revised typescript represents a relatively late form of the text (as evidenced by the intermittent pagination), after the novel had been pared down to its final length of some 60,000 words. It appears that the important Epilogue may here be in an early form, as it is typed on a markedly different paper stock and shows much heavier revision than any other part of the typescript.
Cather makes frequent additions on the typescript, from the insertion of single words to the insertion of short or occasionally lengthy phrases. In most of these, her revisions serve to tighten the narrative flow, to substitute active for passive voice or to sharpen the focus of descriptive passages. Her deletions are also significant: on page 25, Cather deletes an entire sentence descriptive of the mistress, Sapphira Dodderidge Colbert: "To the household it was an occasion when the Mistress drove out. She seldom went more than once a week--preferred to take the air sitting in her chair on the porch." Another sentence, describing the preaching style of Mr. Fairhead (the young minister who aids Nancy in her escape) is lined out on p.54 by Cather. And at p.150, Cather lines out a lengthy, 9-line block of text, describing the Till's duties in the Colbert home.
In her highly personal Epilogue, written in first person, Cather has completely deleted her explanatory note at the beginning: "This concluding chapter I must relate in the first person, for at this point, I myself, came into the story, and saw something of the new order of life on Back Creek. The old order was still about us, in feeling if not in fact, and stories of the War and 'the old slave times' were the nursery tales of our childhood." The text of the Epilogue is quite heavily amended by Cather. In one place, the original version of two long descriptive paragraphs is crossed out (on p.7) and a new version typed on the facing page (p.8).
Segments of narrative within sections were left untitled in the typescript, and many are filled in by Cather in manuscript: on p.28, she adds "Till and Nancy," on p. 49 "Till in Exile," on p.55, she labels the section "VI, The Young Preacher"; on p.61 the section recounting the early life and harrowing enslavement of one of the Colbert slaves is entitled "Jezebel," while a sub-section is "The Slave Ship Out of Africa" (p.65). On a separate inserted leaf (preceding p.128), Cather has boldly penned the title of Book VI "Sampson Speaks to the Miller"; on p.147, a section describing one of the climactic points in the narrative, Nancy's escape from slavery, Cather has added the title "Nancy's Flight." Book VII is given the title "The Dark Autumn," while at p.152, Cather decides to break the text into "Chapter II, adding the note for the printer in the margin "New Chapter." The name of one minor character has been consistently altered from "Bud Flesher" in the typescript to "Caspar Flight" (as in the published book). In a number of places, Cather directs the printers to leave "White Space" between narrative segments (as on pp. 39, 45, etc.).
205 pages, including title-page and a 16-page Epilogue ("Nancy's Return: Epilogue in the First Person"), mostly carbon typescript, typed on rectos only, double-spaced, lacking pp. 35, 110 and 15 of the Epilogue (the later two breaks recorded by Cather in pencilled notes on pp.[111] and 16 of the Epilogue), last 3 leaves a bit frayed at margins, 10 leaves in Epilogue with small rust-stains from removed paperclip, partially and inconsistently paginated in typescript and in manuscript (p. 166 skipped, p. 167 duplicated), and with an extra sectional title in pencil added between pp. 127 and 128.
THE MANUSCRIPT OF CATHER'S 'SAPPHIRA AND THE SLAVE GIRL,' HER LAST, INTENSELY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL, SET IN ANTE-BELLUM VIRGINIA: "A TRIUMPHANT ACHEIVEMENT AT THE END OF A LONG AND DISTINGUISHED CAREER"
This typescript constitutes THE ONLY SURVIVING SOURCE FOR THIS NOVEL, which a recent biographer terms "a triumphant acheivement at the end of a long and distinguished career" (J. Woodress, Willa Cather: A Literary Life, 1987). The typecsript's survival was hiterto unsuspected and it has never been available for systematic study by scholars. In the Spring of 1937, Cather had begun to write Sapphira, her ninth and last novel, and, with various interruptions, against an ominous background of the start of World War II, continued to work on it until publication bu Knopf in December 1940. The story is set in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley in 1856, and its vivid characters--both African-American and white--were drawn from Cather's childhood memories, family stories about ante-bellum life, and anecdotes about the small group of slaves owned by the family in the years before the Civil War. One of these slaves, Nancy Till, had, as a young woman, been helped to freedom by certain family members. At the age of five, Willa had actually witnessed Nancy's return visit to the family home for an emotional reunion with her mother and the former slave-holders. This event, one biographer terms "the most memorable event of Cather's childhood...It all happened just as she told it..." (J. Woodress, p.26). The novel, in fact, offers one of the more sensitive portrayals of African-Americans of its period; it is refreshingly clear of stereotyping, and Cather exhibits a finely tuned ear for black speech. She makes no effort, though, to write a polemic on the evils of chattel slavery, whose evils are, in any case, implicit in the narrative itself. And "the whole history of slavery and the patriarchal social structure of the old South is encapsulated in the story of Jezebel's life" (Woodress, p.485).
During its writing, Cather even revisited her childhood home in Virginia in the spring of 1938, to refresh her memories of the locality. Once she had begun the novel, "so much came back to her that she wrote a great deal more than she used." Her friend and later executor Edith Lewis recalled that Willa "'could have written two or three Sapphiras out of her material; and in fact she did write, in her first draft, twice as much as she used'" (Woodress, p.481). The present revised typescript represents a relatively late form of the text (as evidenced by the intermittent pagination), after the novel had been pared down to its final length of some 60,000 words. It appears that the important Epilogue may here be in an early form, as it is typed on a markedly different paper stock and shows much heavier revision than any other part of the typescript.
Cather makes frequent additions on the typescript, from the insertion of single words to the insertion of short or occasionally lengthy phrases. In most of these, her revisions serve to tighten the narrative flow, to substitute active for passive voice or to sharpen the focus of descriptive passages. Her deletions are also significant: on page 25, Cather deletes an entire sentence descriptive of the mistress, Sapphira Dodderidge Colbert: "To the household it was an occasion when the Mistress drove out. She seldom went more than once a week--preferred to take the air sitting in her chair on the porch." Another sentence, describing the preaching style of Mr. Fairhead (the young minister who aids Nancy in her escape) is lined out on p.54 by Cather. And at p.150, Cather lines out a lengthy, 9-line block of text, describing the Till's duties in the Colbert home.
In her highly personal Epilogue, written in first person, Cather has completely deleted her explanatory note at the beginning: "This concluding chapter I must relate in the first person, for at this point, I myself, came into the story, and saw something of the new order of life on Back Creek. The old order was still about us, in feeling if not in fact, and stories of the War and 'the old slave times' were the nursery tales of our childhood." The text of the Epilogue is quite heavily amended by Cather. In one place, the original version of two long descriptive paragraphs is crossed out (on p.7) and a new version typed on the facing page (p.8).
Segments of narrative within sections were left untitled in the typescript, and many are filled in by Cather in manuscript: on p.28, she adds "Till and Nancy," on p. 49 "Till in Exile," on p.55, she labels the section "VI, The Young Preacher"; on p.61 the section recounting the early life and harrowing enslavement of one of the Colbert slaves is entitled "Jezebel," while a sub-section is "The Slave Ship Out of Africa" (p.65). On a separate inserted leaf (preceding p.128), Cather has boldly penned the title of Book VI "Sampson Speaks to the Miller"; on p.147, a section describing one of the climactic points in the narrative, Nancy's escape from slavery, Cather has added the title "Nancy's Flight." Book VII is given the title "The Dark Autumn," while at p.152, Cather decides to break the text into "Chapter II, adding the note for the printer in the margin "New Chapter." The name of one minor character has been consistently altered from "Bud Flesher" in the typescript to "Caspar Flight" (as in the published book). In a number of places, Cather directs the printers to leave "White Space" between narrative segments (as on pp. 39, 45, etc.).