For nearly forty-five years, from their first meeting in 1903 until Willa Cather’s death in 1947, Edith Lewis was Cather’s professional colleague, devoted friend, and life partner. Eight years Cather’s junior, Lewis’ background reads almost like a carbon copy of Cather’s. Both celebrated December birthdays and grew up within a hundred miles of each other in Nebraska. Both attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and eventually left Nebraska for the world of publishing. Cather was born December 7, 1873, Lewis December 22, 1881. Cather grew up in Red Cloud, Lewis in Lincoln. Cather graduated from the university in 1895. Lewis finished her sophomore year at the university in 1899, then became part of the class of ’02 at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. In 1896 Cather moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to edit the Home Monthly Magazine and in 1906 to New York City to join the staff of McClure’s Magazine. Shortly after she met Cather, Lewis moved to New York City to make her own way as an editor.
They met in 1903 in the home of a mutual friend, Sarah B. Harris, the editor of a Lincoln, Nebraska newspaper to which both women contributed. Indeed, so close are the parallels in Cather’s and Lewis’ early lives that their fathers—Charles F. Cather and Henry L. Lewis, both of whom were involved in banking and land investment—even worked at different times for the same man, R. E. Moore, a prominent banker and sometime political figure in Lincoln, Nebraska. The parallels end when their lives merge. By 1907, Cather and Lewis were both on the editorial staff of McClure’s Magazine; by 1908, they were sharing the first of their Greenwich Village apartments.
Theirs was a mutually-enriching, four-decade partnership between women of similar backgrounds, interests, and tastes who were well-matched in sophistication, culture, and professional accomplishment. A skilled editor and writer who left publishing to handle major accounts for the advertising firm of J. Walter Thompson (including Lever Brothers, Jergens, and Kodak), Lewis regularly advised Cather on matters related to the making and marketing of her novels. From the first days they worked together at McClure’s, Lewis was Cather’s unofficial editor and primary literary adviser.
Willa Cather achieved greatness. Edith Lewis stayed in background. And after Cather died in 1947, Lewis continued to protect and shape Cather’s reputation for twenty-five years, most notably in her 1952 memoir, Willa Cather Living, until her own death August 11, 1972.
