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 have waited to answer your
letter4 because there are several things I want to take up
seriously with you, and yet I do not exactly want to risk a talk with you,
because you can frequently persuade me against my better
own judgement. –
While you were away MacMillan's sent for me to see whether I would let them
have and a Western story to go in a series
of American novels they are bringing out. I said, unwisely, that I was not
free to do so. During the last few years I have met several propositions
from other publishers in the same way. I hate the bother of changes, and
business transactions are never a pleasure to me. I have avoided talking to
publishers because it made me restless and discontented, and because my
relations with you, personally have always been so pleasant, even in
business. But this bill for proof corrections has brought things to a head
with me. I do not think it a just charge. I kept duplicate proofs, with the corrections,
until after your first statement came in; then, as there was no charge entered, I threw them away. I do
not think it is the custom of publishers to make these charges in the case
of painstaking writers in whom the publisher, so to speak, "believes". I
have just seen some of Mr. Drieser's5 proofs; his books are practically re-written in
proof, and he is never charged a cent for corrections. Do not Houghton
Mifflin make this charge as a sort of luxury tax on a carefully written book? I don't mean I doubt
that there is some a charge from the
printer, but it seems that a publisher usually pays this charge for a book
he wants and is glad to handle.
MacMillans, whose books are well printed, tell me that the cost of
composition on a long novel at the
present time, is about $600.00, and that author's proof
corrections cost about a dollar an hour. If my book cost $500.00 for
composition, then by the 20% quoted in the contract, you would give me a
hundred dollars' worth of proof corrections without charge, would you not?
Add to that the amount you take out of my royalties, for and we have author's corrections
amounting to $244.00. Is it possible that it took one man thirty working
days to make my corrections? You may tell me that the Riverside6 compositors charge more per hour, but
why, after all, should your authors be charged more than MacMillans'?
Within the last few weeks, three New
York2 publishers have made me definite propositions for my
next book, offering better terms than my present publishers make me;
and in addition to increase in royalties and
$100.00 $1000.00 to $1500.00 cash
advance on delivery of copy, they offer to give the book and me much better
advertising than I have hitherto had. One firm7 has outlined an advertising scheme which seems to me
excellent. They believe that the aim of avertising is not so much to sell one particular book, or to be careful to
come out even on one book, as to give the author a certain standing which
would insure his future and interest in his future books. Houghton Mifflin's
policy of may work out well for them as a
business policy, but I do not think it works out well for me. I think that the recognition of the public and
reviewers has outstripped that of my publishers. This has been borne in upon
me by a hundred little and big things until it has become a conviction. The
publishers have made no use of this growing appreciation, and take no
account of any evidence of it except the evidence of sales, which, with work
like mine, is not indicative of the real interest.
I want to say a word about reviews. I know it is your theory that reviews do
not sell a book. But some publishers do make them sell books. Several men
have told me here that they believed that
the review8 of "Java Head"9 in the New Republic10
sold11 several thousand copies of
the book. I know a number of people who bought the book after reading that
review,- I did so, at once,- and
they are all [illegible]
people who help to make opinion. I believe the New Republic never received
copy of my last book12, and
Mr. Hackett13 protests, not to me
but to people to whom he would speak more frankly than to me, that his
attention was never called to it by the
publishers as being an unusual book. You remember that after writing you twice14, asking you to send a copy to the
editor of the Globe15, I had to
take a copy to Mr. Dawson's16 house
myself.
One of the cleverest reviewers in New York telephoned me not long ago to
discuss Mencken's17
review18, and remarked that nobody
had been afraid to come out and say that this book was unique in American fiction19,
except the publishers! That is certainly [illegible]true; glance, if you will, at that the jacket on that book; if ever there
was a timid, perfunctory endorsement! "We unhesitatingly recommend etc"20! No use has been made of the very unusual reviews the book
has had. One of the best21
ones was lost in a special publication,
The Dial22; but couldn't the
publishers of the book have got that notice to the part of the public who
would be interested? MacMillans thought so, and the same notice23 was a roast of their bo book. That excellent appreciation24 of Brunius25,
instead
of being quoted26 in some page advertisement devoted to the best
foreign and American notices of my books, was printed27 in The
Piper28 (!) with the sentences which said
the books had the qualities
4 strongest sentences of
commendation and such expressions as "a new and great writer" carefully omitted. Now I don't want Houghton
Mifflin to call me a "great writer", but why are they so shy about quoting
anything of that sort when other people say it? If it were from a delicate
literary conscience, I would admire the firm for it, but they do not feel
this timidity in advertising frankly meretricious work.
I think "Java Head" has been splendidly advertised, with real enthusiasm and fire. You may tell me that it has not done a great deal for the sale of this particular book, but I know it has done a great deal for Hergesheimer29.
This brings me to the real point of my dissatisfaction about advertising. My
present publishers print my books and give them a formal introduction to the
public. At least one30 of the
publishers with whom I have been talking here believes in my books, and he
wants my kind of work enough to spend money in pushing it, to lose money for
the first year or two in pushing it. You know that has to be done to place
an author of any marked originality. You know that Condar even Conrad31 was a
man absolutely recognized but almost unsold until Doubleday, urged by
Kipling32, took some real interest
and pride in selling his books.
I know that you like to publish my books, but I am not assured that the other members33 of your firm do. If they do not, they will never do more than print them (the books) and let them take care of themselves. You know the real temper of your colleagues. This is not a business letter, but an appeal to you for personal advice, which will be absolutely confidential.
Do Houghton Mifflin want to publish me enough to put some money
5 into them
my books, and to give my next novel34 as many inches in of advertising as have been given to "Java
Head", for instance. That book is still being advertised, by the way, while
Antonia was long ago do dropped out of Houghton Mifflin's ads.
Is not the Houghton Mifflin mind and heart entirely fixed upon a different sort of novel?
Frankly, I despair of any future with them. I see35 they have now on hand eight copies of "The Song of the Lark"36 and four of "O Pioneers"37. That seems to me indicative of the cautious spirit in which they have always handled my work. They don't believe they can make much on me, but they will be very careful not to lose much.
Books like mine require a special kind of publicity work. The New York publisher with whom I have talked most will give them that, and he will let me cooperate with his publicity department. I must give him his answer very soon.
I don't like to have my books come out in two groups, from two publishers; and I suppose if I go to antoother publisher
Houghton Mifflin won't keep even four copies of any of my books on hand! But as it is, they never take
advantage of the fact that every review of Antonia was a review of my three
novels and discussed them all as things forming a group by themselves. The
three books are never advertised together as a presentation of special features of American
life, as Knopf38 advertises all of
Hergesheimer's books, even those that are out of print. I don't care about
the cash advance and that sort of thing, but I know I can work better for a
firm that can give me some of its ingenuity and enthusiasm.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0461.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0461
- Contents
- Document is five leaves, typewritten on recto of each leaf only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Ferris Greenslet1
- Date letter was written
- May 19 [1919]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by corresponding letter from Houghton Mifflin staff.
- 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 3 May 1919, Greenslet wrote that he had hoped to see her the day before when he passed through New York City on his way back from England. He then explained that excess proof correction charges for My Ántonia that appeared on her May statement were to originally appear on her statement six months earlier, but he asked to have them held over. He was now, however, "reinstating the debit" in light of the novel selling "fairly well" and earning "a fair margin." He enclosed a check for $74.69, with the balance of $337.14 to be paid 1 September 1919.
The press owned by Houghton Mifflin.
This was likely Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., but there is no definitive evidence.
Hergesheimer's novel was published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
See #0442 and #0447.
In Mencken's review, he describes My Ántonia as "not only the best done by Miss Cather herself, but also one of the best that any American has ever done, East or West, early or late."
The full text on the front cover of the dust jacket is as follows: "Of all the remarkable women that Miss Cather has created no other is so appealing as Ántonia, all impulsive youth and careless courage. Miss Cather has the rare quality of being able to put into her books the flame and driving force of unconquerable youth. MY ÁNTONIA is a love story, brimming with human appeal, and a very distinguished piece of writing. We unreservedly recommend it to all lovers of good stories and those who appreciate the very best in fiction."
Bourne juxtaposes My Ántonia with William Allen White's In the Heart of a Fool (1918, published by Macmillan). He harshly criticizes White's novel and praises Cather for writing a "book that has taken herself out of the rank of provincial writers and given us something we can fairly class with the modern literary art the world over that is earnestly and richly interpreting the spirit of youth."
Junius's essay on Cather was published before any of her works had been translated into Swedish, its title translating as "The Swede Abroad as Novel Character." He praised Cather for depicting Swedish characters in O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark "with real insight and art as Swedes" and counseled Swedish readers that Cather "deserves to be read by Swedes not only because she has written about Swedes, but just as much because she is an artist who has something important to tell us."
A copy with an advertisement for My Ántonia bound in has not been located, but Houghton Mifflin reissued Peabody's play in the Riverside Literature Series in 1919.
This is likely Alfred A. Knopf of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., although there is no definitive evidence.
Although Cather does not name him, Greenslet would have understood that Cather's correspondence with Roger Scaife of Houghton Mifflin about the illustrations for My Ántonia had aggravated her.
Cather derived these numbers from the copyright statement in which the proof corrections were deducted from her royalties. As Greenslet explained on 23 May 1919, these numbers referred only to bound stock. 500 hundred copies of The Song of the Lark were in stock in unbound sheets; the situation with O Pioneers! was similar.
Person Annotations
Greenslet, Ferris (1875-1959). American editor and writer.
Born in Glens Falls, NY, Ferris Greenslet earned a BA (1897) from
Wesleyan University and a PhD (1900) from Columbia University. He served as
associate editor at the Atlantic Monthly from 1902 to
1907, and married Ella Stoothoff Hulst in 1903; they had two children,
Marguerite (born 1904) and George (born 1906). As an author he specialized
in biography. He became literary editor at Houghton Mifflin, the Boston
publisher of the Atlantic, c. 1908 and was socially
and professionally acquainted with Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett,
who may have introduced him to Cather. He evidently solicited Cather to
submit Alexander’s Bridge (1912), her first published
novel, to Houghton Mifflin. In 1910, when Greenslet became editor in chief
of the trade department, Roger Scaife divided his shares as a director of
the company 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; when Greenslet was absent
from the office, Scaife handled correspondence with Cather. Greenslet became
a director of Houghton Mifflin in 1919 and manager of the trade department
in 1933. Cather left Houghton Mifflin as a publisher for Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc., because she became dissatisfied with the production and advertising of
her books. However, she remained on cordial terms with Greenslet and
undertook several projects for him after her departure. Her extant letters
to him constitute one of the largest groups to a single correspondent.
Dreiser, Theodore (1871-1945). American author. Born Hermann Theodore Dreiser in Terre Haute, IN, to Johann Paul Dreiser and Sarah Schänäb, Theodore Dreiser grew up in poverty. Even though he did not graduate high school, he attended Indiana University for one year. In 1892 he became a reporter, writing for the Chicago Globe, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the St. Louis Republic, and the Pittsburgh Dispatch. In 1897 he began freelancing for magazines. Best known as an author of naturalist novels, his first novel, Sister Carrie, was published by Doubleday Page in 1900, after he substantially revised it and Doubleday almost backed out of its commitment to publish it on moral grounds. After suffering a nervous breakdown, Dreiser moved to New York City, where he became an editor and was involved in radical political causes. He finally completed his second novel, Jennie Gerhardt (1911), published by Harper & Brothers, but publishers remained reluctant to publish his novels as he had written them. Macmillan published his An American Tragedy (1925) and his verse drama Lilith (1926), co-authored with George Sterling.
Hackett, Francis (1883-1962). Irish-American writer and journalist. Born in Kilkenny, Ireland, to John Byrne Hackett and Bridget Doheny Hackett, Francis Hackett emigrated to the U.S. in 1901. He first wrote for the Chicago Evening Post and founded its Friday Literary Review in 1909. From 1914 to 1922 he was associate editor of the New Republic, where he favorably reviewed Willa Cather’s work. Hackett also served as special correspondent for the New York World from 1920 to 1923 and as book critic for the New York Times from 1944 to 1945 and wrote several books. After he returned to Europe the King of Denmark awarded Hackett the Liberty Medal in 1946.
Dawson, N. P., Mrs. American book critic. Dawson regularly wrote book reviews for the New York Globe and Commercial Advertiser from as early as 1914 and into the 1920s. She signed reviews as N.P.D. or N.P. Dawson, and press reports called her “Mrs. N. P. Dawson.” Cather was not the only reader to mistakenly believe that Dawson was a man, although it is surprising that in a letter to Ferris Greenslet complaining about the failure of Houghton Mifflin to supply reviewers with copies of My Ántonia she reports that she personally delivered a copy to “Mr. Dawson’s house” (#0461).
Mencken, Henry Louis (1880-1956) ("H. L."). American author, editor,
and journalist. Born in Baltimore, MD, into a German immigrant
family, Henry Louis Mencken worked in his father’s cigar factory for two
years after graduating high school. At age eighteen he became a cub reporter
for the Baltimore Herald, rising quickly through the
journalistic ranks while also publishing poetry and short stories in
national magazines. He became literary editor of the Smart
Set magazine in 1909, later becoming co-editor with George Jean
Nathan, while continuing to be a prolific and bold social and literary
critic. He and Nathan founded the American Mercury
magazine in 1923. Mencken reviewed many of Cather’s novels, and she began
corresponding with him about her work early in her career as a novelist. Her
stories “Her Boss” (1919) and “Coming, Eden Bower!” (1920) appeared in the
Smart Set, and from 1920 Cather and Mencken
shared Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., as a publisher (Mencken was a close personal
friend of both Alfred and Blanche Knopf). Mencken was one of the strongest
voices in favor of My Ántonia (1918), and Alfred
Knopf commissioned him to write an appreciation of Cather for The Borzoi 1920; however, Cather’s attempt to manage
his response to One of Ours (1922) by writing him in
advance of publication and soliciting a review failed—Mencken wrote one of
the most stingingly negative reviews of it. Mencken fell out of public favor
in the early 1930s but became popular again with the publication of his
fourth revision of The American Language in 1936,
which he continued to revise for the rest of his life. He spent the final
years of his life unable to write or speak as the result of a massive stroke
in 1948.
Brunius, August G. (1879-1926). Swedish literary critic. Born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Johan Gomer Tor Brunius and Kristina Matilda Bagge Brunius, August Brunius was one of the most influential literary critics in Sweden and is credited with introducing the Scandinavian reading public to Willa Cather. Cather appreciated Brunius’s promotion of her work in his 1918 article in the Swedish weekly Idun.
Hergesheimer, Joseph (1880-1954). American novelist and
short story writer. Born in Germantown, PA, Joseph Hergesheimer
trained as a painter at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in
Philadelphia. In 1913 he sold his first short stories to the Forum magazine. Mitchell Kennerley, who published his
first novel, The Lay Anthony (1914), introduced
Hergesheimer to Alfred Knopf, and Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., brought out Three Black Pennys (1917) and all of the subsequent
books. Hergesheimer was known for the lush aestheticism of his prose and his
“exotic” foreign settings. His reputation was at its height in the early
1920s but went into a decline thereafter. It is not clear whether Willa
Cather ever met Hergesheimer in person. However, she admired Knopf’s
advertising of Java Head (1919), comparing it
unfavorably to Houghton Mifflin’s lackluster marketing of her books, and the
contrast informed her decision to leave Houghton Mifflin for Knopf.
Conrad, Joseph (1857-1924), British novelist and master mariner.
Born in the Ukraine to Polish patriot parents, Conrad's fiction, all
written in English, often drew on his maritime experiences. He published
only one story in McClure’s Magazine, “The Brute”
(1907), but had various other dealings with S. S. McClure’s other publishing
enterprises from 1898 to 1910. During a trip to London in 1909, Cather
attempted to secure more material from him for the magazine. Cather's
letters indicate that she continued to read Conrad, often praised as a
modern master of narrative technique, closely and seriously.
Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936). English fiction writer and poet.
Born in Bombay, India, to English parents, Kipling was sent to
England for his education but returned to India to work as a journalist. His
poems and short stories about India won him an audience in England, and he
settled in London in 1889. When he married Caroline Balestier in 1892, the
couple moved to her home state of Vermont. In 1896 Willa Cather claimed to
have met Kipling and she described the “46 minutes” of conversation with him
as “alone worth” her move to Pittsburgh to work for the Home Monthly (#0028). In 1899, Cather wrote a column about his
career for the Lincoln Courier, in which she noted
the irony of Kipling trying to “live a respectable Puritan life in Vermont
and be a full-fledged family man,” urging him to “Go back east.” In 1899, he
did leave the U.S., but for London, not India, where he remained the rest of
his life. McClure’s Magazine published Kipling’s poem
“The White Man’s Burden” (1899) and the novel Kim
(1900-1901), paying him $25,000 for serialization of the latter. When Cather
traveled to London on McClure’s business in 1909, she
carried a letter of introduction to him, but it is not clear whether she met
him again there. Throughout her life Cather expressed enthusiasm for
Kipling’s works, which she associated with a spirit of adventure, and her
letters make clear that she followed his life and career closely.
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.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"Salem Revisited," New Republic (February 22, 1919) by M.A.
Java Head (1918) by Joseph Hergesheimer
New Republic
My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
New York Globe and Commercial Advertiser
"Mainly Fiction," Smart Set (March 1919) by H. L. Mencken
"Morals and Art from the West," Dial (December 14, 1918) by Randolph Bourne
Dial
"Utlandssvensken som romanfigur," Idun (March 1918) by August Brunius
The Piper: A Play in Four Acts (1909) by Josephine Preston Peabody
One of Ours (1922) by Willa Cather
The Song of the Lark (1915) by Willa Cather
O Pioneers! (1913) by Willa Cather
