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#2570: Willa Cather to Alfred A. Knopf, October 27 [1926]

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⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ B Dear Alfred Knopf1;

I've written ever so many dreary prefaces and things3 to oblige you. Won't you please write, or rather make a lay-out of one ad to please me? Half the people, like Saturday Review4, don't know5 what this book6 is is about! Fanny Butcher7 states it well. Won't you please send out an ad something like this, and give it fair space?

My Mortal Enemy

etc

Fanny Butcher in the Chicago Tribune8 says9:
Heavy face type
" under the flotsam of these lives there is the steady rhythm of the fundamental hatred of the sexes one for the other and their irresistible attraction one for the other. ................
lighter type It is as fragile and delicate and simple a tale as "The Lost Lady,." and yet while that book had little of the undercurrent of human life and relationships, this one is vibrant with them. Without having any of the surface characteristics of a profound book, it is profound.

[illegible]

Couldn't you do something like that?—only with taste, of course. I really think it would have practical results to let people know know what this story is trying to get at, from this side and that. The theme is rather unusual, and Fanny's statement of it would make me want to read the book, if it were by any reputable author.

I wish you'd please make such an ad—and run it for several weeks in the Times Book Review10, especially!

I leave here2 tomorrow—will have no address until the last of next week.

Faithfully Willa Cather