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 |
3/25/47. Mr Koshland3 ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ K 3/26 March 24, 1947. Dear Alfred1:
I am sending you number four of letters from an absolutely crazy woman4 in Vienna5. The first letter came to me at Northeast Harbor6. It described her personal beauty, her scholarship, and her fitness to translate all my books into German. To this I sent a very harsh and stern refusal, stating that I was having my books translated in Switzerland7, where an excellent translation8 of the Archbishop9 was published five or six years ago; that the original translation got out10 of Germany11 under the lining of the translator12's two suitcases (I don't read German but a good German scholar read two chapters aloud to me, translating as he read, and I found it excellent.).¶ The second letter from this lady was devoted to her literary worship and ideals. The third letter was a sharp and fierce cry for money and food to be sent at once. She gave me details as to how generous food packages could be sent and hurried through to Vienna. To that letter I made no reply at all. Now comes this.
If this woman's German translation is received by you from her publisher, there is a possibility that some action should be taken to shut her off. It would be a real misfortune to have any book translated and circulated by this insane woman.
Faithfully yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2749.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2749
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- March 24, 1947
- 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 a list of translations created by Knopf's office and sent to Ferris Greenslet on 31 January 1945, there is a note that the "German translation [of Death Comes for the Archbishop] was burned in the street by Nazi police, and plates destroyed. Meanwhile the translator had escaped into Switzerland, carrying with him carbon sheets of his translation under the lining of two suitcases. Two years later this translation into German was published in Zürich, and had a very large sale" (see enclosure in #1697). However, there is no evidence that this report is accurate, as a translation by Sigismund von Radecki was published openly in the periodical Hochland in 1937 and the same translation was used by Scientia AG in Zurich for their 1940 book while von Radecki continued to live in Germany.
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.
Koshland, William (1907-1997). American publisher. Born in Boston and educated at Harvard University, Koshland joined Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1934. He served as a naval air officer in World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. He became president of Knopf in 1966 and chairman of the firm in 1973. He had limited interactions with Cather during her lifetime, but after Cather’s death he corresponded frequently with Edith Lewis as Cather’s literary executor.
Barrois, Augusta V. Bronner (1914-after 1980). Austrian and American academic. Born in Vienna, Austria, Bronner received a doctorate in Germanic and Romance languages and literature at the University of Vienna in 1938, and worked toward a second doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1940s. She taught American and Germanic culture and literature in Europe and the U.S., working as a professor at several different universities and often lecturing to community organizations. She married Georges Augustin Barrois, a religion scholar at Princeton University. She was an author and translator, and published a German translation of Cather's O Pioneers! in 1945.
Radecki, Sigismund von (1891-1970). German writer and translator. A writer particularly known for his essays and criticism, von Radecki was also a prolific German translator of Russian and English texts, publishing many translations of works by Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, and Nikolai Gogol, among others. In 1937, he published a translation of Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop in the progressive Catholic periodical Hochland.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Der Tod kommt zum Erzbischof (1940) by Willa Cather
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather
