Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
REFERRED TO _____
AUG 30 1922
ANSWERED BY k 8/30
FILED BY _____ August 27Dear Mr. Knopf1:
I am sending you by this mail the corrected page
proofs of the book of poems3. I expect the printers
will groan, for I have cut out one short
poem4 that was really too bad and have substituted two others in its place.
Please ask them to have the page proofs5
ready by September 20th if they can, and I will read them soon after my return to
town6. Ask them to send me a proof of
the prefatory note7 at the same
time.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2536.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2536
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- August 27 [1922]
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Cather-Knopf Correspondence, The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
In the final version of April Twilights and Other Poems (1923), Cather omitted thirteen poems from April Twilights (1903) and added twelve.
After printers incorporated corrections made on the galley proofs, the typeset text was configured into pages for additional proofreading and correction.
The preface to April Twilights and Other Poems (1923) reads: "The verses in Part I of this volume are reprinted from an early volume, April Twilights, published in 1903. Those in Part II are of later composition, and for permission to republish them I am indebted to the editors of Scribner's Magazine, McClure's Magazine, and The Century Magazine.
Person Annotations
Knopf, Alfred A. (1892-1984). President of New York
publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Knopf received his BA from
Columbia University in New York City in 1912 and founded Alfred Knopf, Inc.,
in 1915 with his future wife Blanche Wolf. They married in 1916, and their
son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Cather chose him as her publisher
beginning with Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920) and
One of Ours (1922), partly because she was
dissatisfied with the promotion of her books by Houghton Mifflin but also
because she recognized the high quality of Knopf's books, as well as what
she regarded as his intelligent advertising. Knopf was noted for publishing
the work of leading European and South American writers in translation, as
well as original works. Knopf and Cather’s extensive correspondence
testifies to their mutual professional respect and to what also became an
important personal friendship.
Place Annotations
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
Work Annotations
April Twilights and Other Poems (1923) by Willa Cather
