Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| 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 |
Filed by Red Cloud2
February 10th Dear Alfred1;
I have not written3 you, as I
expected to be in New York4 at this
date. My father5 has been very ill for
the last two weeks, his second attack of an
angina, and that has kept me here. The things I want to discuss with you are
hard to take up by letter.
The demand for the Archbishop6 seems a mixed blessing, as even now there seems to be no very adequate method of satisfying it. As I telegraphed you last night, the dealers here and in all the little towns about have been trying get books from McClurg7, Chicago8, to fill the orders of a few patient friends who were not able to get the book for Christmas. Finally McClurg wrote the dealer here that they had ordered the books to be sent direct from the publisher to Grice & Grimes9, Red Cloud. So far, they have not come. If all these little town dealers in Nebraska10, Kansas11, Colorado12, Iowa13, who always order from McClurg, can't get books, isn't there something wrong with the method14 of distribution? They tell me all their orders for "Antonia"15 are filled quickly and without trouble.
I have been here nearly three months, and in all that time the book has not had a fair chance in this little town, or in ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ this part of the state. I don't know about Omaha16, but it has been impossible to get the book in Lincoln17 part of the time. I've had so many complaints from Catholics all over the country that I'm afraid there has been the same difficulty in getting books, East and West.
When you decided not to give the "Archbishop" any individual advertising18, then I understood that it
was up to the book to sell itself if it could. But how can it sell itsef itself if it is not printed, and if the
jobbers don't carry it? It was out of print for a week or ten days at the
most critical part of the selling season. Only ten days, but they were the ten days before Christmas.
However, that's over. The point I raise is, why is it still so hard to get
books?
I shall start east in a week or ten days, as soon as I feel that it's quite safe to leave my father19. I'm your personal friend and admirer, now and always, but I don't think you've given the Archbishop a flattering show of your interest and attention. With any personal enthusiasm behind it, I feel sure the book would have done much better. But we can talk of these things much better than we can write of them. I write a devilish hand at best and I've been under a considerable strain since father fell ill.
Faithfully Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2585.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2585
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, handwritten on recto and verso of both leaves.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- February 10 [1928]
- Place letter was written
- Red Cloud, Nebraska, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Cather-Knopf Correspondence, The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
On 7 February 1928, Knopf wrote Cather because he was surprised he had not heard from her in a while. He reported that Death Comes for the Archbishop was "keeping along splendidly."
A.C. McClurg was a book wholesaler, retailer, and publishing house.
A Red Cloud drugstore operated by H. E. Grice and E. L. Grimes. In small towns, drugstores often sold books.
The Knopf offices immediately telegraphed Cather after receiving her letter, letting her know that Alfred Knopf was in Chicago and would investigate. He followed up on 15 February 1928, blaming McClurg for failing to order an adequate number of copies.
On 15 February 1928 Alfred Knopf reported that a phone call from Cather about advertising the book "frightened everyone in this place, myself included, from ever stating his mind to the public for fear that you the copy might offend you."
Cather would depart on 24 February 1928 but would be called back, arriving shortly after his 3 March 1928 death.
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.
Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father.
Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back
Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers
who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War.
He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters,
in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and
Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where
various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the
county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an
insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe,
Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and
John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very
warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially
enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week
after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of
heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather
My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
