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 |
You3 needn't have bothered to telegraph me—I knew you'd understand my prejudice even if you were amused by it. Charley Towne4 gets my goat. I told the Knopfs5 to let him see it6 after they had shown it to the three editors to whom Mrs. Knopf had already telephoned.
Really, Zoë, a little prairie town in winter is very thrilling, if one has the physical hardihood to endure it. The out-of-doors is wonderful: Blinding sunlight all day, crystal moonlight all night. Father7 has a closed car with a heater in it, and he drives me about among all the Scandinavian and Bohemian settlements all day long. I'm having more excitement than I can ever manage to get in New York8 or Paris9. It's so satisfying to watch the same human stories go on and on, to see how the lives I know so well come out in the end, the dramas that reach over so many years, and that work out so unexpectedly—and yet so logically, when you know all the elements in the case.
A thousand loving greetings to you dear Zoë, and please let me see lots of you when I get back.
Devotedly WillaInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0655.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0655
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, handwritten on recto of each leaf only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins 1
- Date letter was written
- December 6 [1922]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather's presence in Red Cloud in December and her references to the serialization of A Lost Lady.
- Place letter was written
- Red Cloud, Nebraska, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949, in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library (6494-b), University of Virginia, Special Collections, Charlottesville, VA
Individual Annotations
Akins evidently telegraphed Cather after receiving #0652, which also concerns the serialization of A Lost Lady and Charles Towne as a literary agent. Blanche Knopf placed the novel with the Century magazine (see #0660), where it appeared in April, May, and June 1923.
Person Annotations
Akins, Zoë (1886-1958). American poet, playwright, and screenwriter.
Akins’ friendship with Cather started in 1909, when she submitted
verse to McClure’s magazine, which Cather rejected,
advising her to stay with playwriting. Akins subsequently moved from her
hometown of St. Louis, MO, to New York City and achieved success as a
playwright. She moved to California in the 1930s, adding screenwriting to
her accomplishments. Her play The Old Maid (1935), an
adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. In
1932, Akins married Captain Hugh Rumbold, a British theatrical designer and
director; he died eight months later. Cather and Akins carried on a lifelong
correspondence, with Cather writing affectionate letters that included both
commentary on her own works and criticism of Akins’.
Towne, Charles Hanson (1877-1949) (“Charley”). American editor, writer, and literary agent. Born in Kentucky, Charles Towne moved to New York where he worked first at Cosmopolitan, then at Smart Set from 1901-1907, then joined the staff of the Delineator as fiction editor from 1907-1910. He was an editor at McClure’s Magazine from 1914-1920, and of Harper’s Bazaar from 1926-1929. Towne published volumes of verse, fiction, juvenile fiction, travel writing, and etiquette advice for men. He also worked as a literary agent, notably for Somerset Maugham and Theodore Dreiser. Cather published “The Diamond Mine” (1916) in McClure’s while Towne was there; later, Cather was annoyed at Zoë Akins for referring Towne to her, denouncing him as “cheap” (#0652).
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.
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.
Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father.
Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back
Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers
who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War.
He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters,
in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and
Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where
various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the
county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an
insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe,
Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and
John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very
warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially
enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week
after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of
heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
A Lost Lady (1923) by Willa Cather
