Although it has long been claimed that Willa Cather destroyed most of her letters in order to protect her privacy, the record now makes clear that this is largely myth: The Complete Letters of Willa Cather digital archive has collected more than three thousand letters, and more are regularly being located. What can we learn about Cather and her fiction from such a wealth of firsthand writings? The essays in Willa Cather and Letters use a variety of approaches to consider both letters authored by Cather and letters written to her, shining new light on Cather’s relationships with her brother Roscoe Cather and her friends playwright and screenwriter Zoë Akins and opera diva Olive Fremstad.
Readers also come to understand Cather’s pleasure in artistic works produced by others, her experience of disability, and her appreciation of the GIs who read her books in Armed Services Editions. Contributors show how digital tools can be used to read across her letters at a larger scale, finding patterns and trends not discernible using conventional methods.