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.

West, Rebecca (1892-1983). British novelist, journalist, and critic. Born in Kerry, Ireland, to a Scotch mother and Anglo-Irish father, Cicely Isabel Fairfield trained in London as an actress, where she took the name Rebecca West from the heroine of Henrik Ibsen’s play Rosmerhsholm (1886). As a journalist writing for the Freewoman and the Clarion West promoted women’s suffrage and socialist causes and argued against British imperialism. She also became a powerful literary critic, writing reviews for both British and American periodicals. and an important modernist fiction writer. Her first novel, The Return of the Soldier (1918), explored the effect of the trauma of World War I from the perspective of the sister of a combat veteran. Her Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941) is considered a masterpiece of British travel writing. In her later life, West abandoned her early radicalism and was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1959. Cather had met West by early 1927, and later that year West positively reviewed Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) for the New York Herald Tribune Books. Cather continued to cultivate West as a critic, ensuring that she got copies of her books, leading to West’s positive review of Shadows on the Rock (1931).

Knopf, Blanche Wolf (1894-1966). Vice President of New York publisher Alfred Knopf, Inc. Blanche Wolf founded Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1915 with her future husband Alfred Knopf. They married in 1916 and their son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Active in the business throughout her life, Blanche Knopf recruited a number of prominent European and Latin American writers to the Knopf list (in translation) by traveling to meet them. In recognition of her work with writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, she was inducted into the French Legion of Honor in 1949. She became president of Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1957 when her husband became chairman. Through her work in the publishing house she also promoted writers of the Harlem Renaissance such as Langston Hughes. Cather’s letters to Knopf focus primarily on business but the two also became friends.