M. Manley Aaron (May 5, 1930) | Willa Cather Archive

#2614: Willa Cather to M. Manley Aaron, May 5, 1930

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Ans'd by ____
MAY 6 1930
Filed by ____ May 5, 1930. My dear Miss Aaron¹:

During the time³ that I am away, will you please have my mail⁴ gathered up about once a week, put in a seaworthy office envelope and sent to - Miss Sarah J. Bloom⁵, Room 1202, 7 Dey Street, New York City.²

In case any of the letters forwarded to Miss Bloom bring up questions which ought to be referred to the office, I have asked her to telephone you personally and lay the matter before you; and I will deeply appreciate it if you will give her your best advice.

Faithfully yours, Willa Cather

Information about this letter:

Source File:: cat.let2614.xml
Letter identifier: 2614
Contents: Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
Person to whom letter was written: M. Manley Aaron¹
Date letter was written: May 5, 1930
Place letter was written: New York, New York, United States²
Location of original letter: Cather-Knopf Correspondence, The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism, New York, NY

Individual Annotations

Cather and Edith Lewis departed for France on 14 May 1930 on RMS Berengaria. On 27 September 1930, they departed Southampton, England, on the RMS Empress of France for Quebec City, Canada, arriving 3 October 1930.

On 7 May 1930, Aaron wrote that she would follow Cather's instructions and hoped Cather would enjoy reading Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and Red Harvest.

Person Annotations

0343

Aaron, M. Manley. Alfred Knopf’s secretary. As secretary to the president of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., Willa Cather’s publisher, Manley Aaron was responsible for clerical matters, such as tracking Cather’s address as she traveled or mailing her supplies. However, Alfred Knopf also delegated to Aaron the task of negotiating with magazines for the publication of Cather’s short stories collected in Obscure Destinies (1932), and she took direct responsibility for other matters for Cather and other authors as well.

0102

Bloom, Sarah J. (1889-1961). Cather's personal secretary. Born in New York in 1889 to Russian immigrants Solomon and Bertha Bloom, Sarah J. Bloom worked for Cather from some time in the 1920s until Cather's death and continued to work for Edith Lewis on matters pertaining to Cather's literary estate thereafter. Bloom typed Cather's literary manuscripts and managed Cather's correspondence, typing dictated letters and sometimes responding for Cather when she was traveling. Bloom’s work for Cather supplemented full-time office employment in New York City (for many years she worked for the New York State Public Service Commission). She thus came to Cather and Lewis's apartment on weekends to take dictation, pick up and deliver typescripts, and deliver typed letters for signature. She died in New York city in 1961.

Place Annotations

New York, New York, United States