Two years ago, while spending a sabbatical in California, I decided to reread Willa Cather's letters to Zoë Akins, collected at the Huntington Library. As Cather scholars have long known, doing biographical research on Cather is a challenging task: her letters are scattered in collections all over the country, and no Collected Letters of Willa Cather exists because of the provision in her will banning publication. Now we have the invaluable A Calendar of the Letters of Willa Cather (2002) edited by Janis Stout, but this useful summary and chronology of Cather's correspondence is no substitute for reading the original documents. Some libraries interpret her will liberally and will either allow you to make Xerox copies or will send you copies. The Huntington policy, however, is to adhere strictly to the terms of the will. No photocopies.