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 |
April 7th. Dear Mr. Scaife1;
I will be glad to help4 in any way about Albertieri5's book6. I don't suppose he will want to split it, as from his point of view it seems a complete and logical presentation of the subject.
With regard to the decoration of my book7, I think
Benda8 might be able to do it. His
half-tone illustrations are rather too mannered, but he used to do good head9 and tailpieces pi
tailpieces10, and he knows the material.
I will try to have a talk with him and let you know about it later. The samples of
binding I will return soon, naming a first and second choice. Within the next four
weeks I shall know whether this story is going to come together in time for fall
publication or not. I think it will.
I hear from a bookseller in Oxford Junction,
Iowa11, that he has had several orders for "O
Pioneers!"12 and has been utterly unable to fill them. Will you please have
a notice to the effect that there is a new e
printing of the book to; Mr. Arthur Grimwood13,
Oxford J Junction, Iowa.
Isn't there a statement of sales due me sometime in April?
—31st AprilIf I can't get better reports of "Green Mansions"14 than you did, I am afraid I shall have to send you some candy15.
Faithfully Willa S. Cather HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANYAPR 10 859 AM -17
[illegible] PM
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY RIVERSIDE PRESS-CAMBRDIGE
1917 APR 10
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0384.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0384
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only with datestamp on verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roger L. Scaife1
- Date letter was written
- April 7 [1917]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944 (MSAm1925), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Individual Annotations
5 Bank Street (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis beginning in 1912, located in Greenwich Village in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Subway construction forced Cather and Lewis to relocate in 1927.
On 30 March 1917 Scaife reported that he was "indebted" to Cather for "a most interesting hour" with Albierti. He asked whether they might "enlist [Cather's] interest" if they offered to publish his book, but also suggested the work might be divided into separate volumes on the history and practice of dance.
Decoration printed at the blank space at the beginning of a chapter or other part of a book.
Small decorative design at the end of a work or a chapter of a work.
On 30 March 1917, Scaife reported the results of inquiries he made in New York about sales of Green Mansions: it sold only 600 copies in its first U.S. edition, published by Putnam's, and Alfred A. Knopf's American edition did not sell 5,000 copies in New York City, as Cather believed it did, but rather about 3,500. He also joked that the "tea party" they had had in New York had caused "trouble" with his "sweet tooth."
Person Annotations
Scaife, Roger Livingston (1875-1951). Head of publicity at Houghton Mifflin. An 1897 graduate of Harvard University, Scaife went to work for Houghton Mifflin in 1898 as assistant to Azaria Smith, head of the publicity department. Scaife subsequently assumed Smith’s position and became a shareholder of the corporation and secretary of the board of directors. In 1910, when Ferris Greenslet became editor in chief of the trade department, Scaife divided his shares with him, and the two presented themselves to authors as partners, with Scaife handling book advertising and format and Greenslet negotiating contracts and supervising editing. Scaife anonymously published three satirical novels with Houghton Mifflin, The Confessions of a Debutante (1913), Cape Codities (1920), and The Reflections of a T.B.M. (1920), and two books of children’s verse under his own name. Cather corresponded primarily with Greenslet about her novels, but in his absence she dealt with Scaife during the production of My Ántonia (1918), and her dissatisfaction with decisions made on his authority contributed to her decision to transfer her publishing business to Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. In 1934 Scaife left Houghton Mifflin to become executive vice president of Little, Brown. He later became the fourth director of Harvard University Press.
Albertieri, Luigi (1869-1930). Italian-American dancer, dance
teacher, and choreographer. Born in Rome, Italy, Luigi
Albertieri was trained as a dancer by his adoptive father, Enricho
Cecchetti, with whom he toured in Europe and Russia. After living and
performing in London, England, he came to the U.S. in 1894 and danced with
the Metropolitan Opera company in New York City. He was ballet master of the
Opera of Chicago from 1910 and of the Metropolitan Opera from 1913. He
opened his own school in New York City in 1915. Cather likely met him when
she was researching “Training for the Ballet” (McClure’s
Magazine October 1913), in which he is featured. She attempted
unsuccessfully in 1917-1918 to persuade Houghton Mifflin to publish his The Art of Terpsichore.
Benda, W. T. (1873-1948) ("Wladyslaw Theodor") . Polish-born
American graphic artist. Born in Poland, W.T. Benda studied art
in Krakow and in Vienna, Austria. In 1899, he came to the U.S. to visit his
aunt, actress Helena Modjeska, and worked on her ranch in California until
1902, when he moved to New York City and studied at the Art Students League.
He became well known for his illustrations appearing in both books and
leading magazines, including McClure's during
Cather's editorship there. He was particularly known for his
charcoal-and-wash drawings of exotic beauties known as “Benda women.”
Naturalized as an American citizen in 1911, Benda married Romola Campfield,
with whom he had two daughters, and lived the rest of his life in New York.
Willa Cather chose Benda to illustrate My Ántonia
(1918), and the payment for and number of these illustrations became a
source of conflict with publisher Houghton Mifflin.
Grimwood, Edmund Albert (1863-1955). Iowa pharmacist. Born on an Iowa farm to English parents, Grimwood apprenticed as a pharmacist in Independence, IA, before opening his own drugstore in Oxford Junction, IA, in 1887, operating it until 1920. In 1917, he evidently wrote Cather complaining of his inability to get copies of O Pioneers! (1913)—small-town druggists often sold books. In relaying his complaint to Houghton Mifflin, Cather misrepresented his name. After Grimwood sold his pharmacy, he served several terms in the Iowa legislature.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
The Art of Terpsichore: An Elementary, Theoretical, Physical, and Practical Treatise of Dancing (1923) by Luigi Albertieri
My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
O Pioneers! (1913) by Willa Cather
Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest (1904) by William Henry Hudson
