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 |
I am putting this letter up to you. You will know what to do about it. I expect Mr. Lawlor3 is a flashy guy. But you will remember that all of poor Mansfield's4 stories had to do with her memories of New Zealand5, and really were the result of the terrible homesickness which consumed her in those last years. Even her poor diary6 is full of it. I think she would have liked anything that made her a 'person' in New Zealand. I expect it is a pretty roughneck audience out there but I think, from her diary, she would have liked just a little bit of appreciation in her own island better than anything else in the world. However, it is for you to decide7 - it is a pure matter of sentimentality with me.
Hastily, Willa Cather Recd10/22/43
9am
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2725.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2725
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- October 18, 1943
- 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
In his 25 October 1943 letter, Knopf indicated that the Australasian rights to Cather's Not Under Forty (1936) belonged to Cassell in England, but that he would ask that they honor her wishes.
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.
Lawlor, Patrick Anthony. (1893-1979). New Zealand journalist and author. Born in Wellington, New Zealand, to David Roche Lawlor and Margret Dennehy Lawlor, Patrick Lawlor attended St. Patrick’s College from 1908 to 1909. In 1910 Lawlor began his career as a journalist with the Evening Host, later working for the Dominion, the Hawke’s Bay Herald, the New Zealand Times, the New Zealand Artist’s Annual, and the New Zealand Railways Magazine. He also wrote and published over forty books and booklets (including under the pen name, Shibli Bagarag) including The House of Templemore (1938), Daniel Mahoney’s Secret (1939), Old Wellington Days (1959), and More Wellington Days (1962). In 1943 Cather gave Lawlor permission to reprint her essay “Katherine Mansfield.”
Mansfield, Katherine (1888-1923). New Zealand author. Born in
Wellington, New Zealand, Katherine Mansfield is best known as short story
writer. Her work appeared in Rhythm and The Blue
Review and was collected in In a German
Pension (1911), Prelude (1918), Bliss (1920), and The Garden
Party (1922). The Dove’s Nest (1923) and Something Childish (1924) were published
posthumously, as was her Journal (1927), edited by
her husband John Middleton Murry. Cather evidently read Mansfield’s journal
and admired her fiction. Mansfield’s works were published in the U.S. by
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and Cather’s essay “Katherine Mansfield” appeared in
The Borzoi 1925. In revised form the essay was
collected in Not Under Forty (1936).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927) by Katherine Mansfield; edited by J. Middleton Murry
