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 |
The wonderful basket of fruit you sent me lasted nearly all the way across the ocean4 and did a great deal to help out the monotonous Cunard5 table. The weather was fine and I never felt better than during those eleven days at sea. I got a complete rest and reached Paris2 full of “pep”. After a few days of costly magnificence at the Palaise d’Orsay6 I settled in this quiet hotel, just across the river from the Louvre7. I have two small rooms, four flights up, facing on a quiet court; a bedroom, and a writing room in which I do not write one word! I write even my letters in the Luxembourg Gardens8. The weather is gold and gray all mixed up—anybody would be a fool to shut themselves up with their own ideas with the city, this rather particular city, swimming in light outside. However, in the hours between sleeping and waking, in the hour before lunch and the idleness in the gardens after tea, I’m gradually getting the things I came for.
I live very comfortably for fifty francs a day—food and lodging, that
is—which is not much if you consider exchange. Food is not so dear as in
New York9, and is of course len[?] ten times
better, from the soup to the wonderful deserts. Theaters and music as cheap as ever,
excellent seats for two dollars. But all the things in
shops are twice as expensive as in New York,—hats, gloves, everything.
The city itself never seemed to me so beautiful, and I find it a great advantage to live on the Seine. The streets are lovelier than anything in the art galleries. The Hambourgs10 will join me in two weeks and after lingering here for a time we will go South together.
With greetings and good wishes to you and Mr. Knopf11
Faithfully yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0687.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0687
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Blanche Wolf Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- June 12 [1920]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Cather sends two other letters from the Hotel Quai Voltaire with similar content (see #0507 and #0509), establishing the year of this letter as 1920.
- Place letter was written
- Paris, Île-de-France, France2
- Location of original letter
- Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., Records (MS-00062), University of Texas, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin, TX
Individual Annotations
Located along the Seine, across the river from the Louvre, the Hotel du Quai Voltaire was established in 1856 in a former convent that was constructed in 1780.
British cruise line founded in 1879.
The original Palais d'Orsay burned down during the Paris Commune in 1871 and the site remained as a reminder of the violence of civil war. In anticipation of the 1900 World's Fair, the French goverment ceded the land to the Orléans railroad company, which commissioned Victor Laloux to build the Gare du Quai d'Orsay station and hotel, where Cather stayed.
The Musée du Louvre in Paris, France, which first opened in 1793, is the world's largest art museum.
Originating in the 17th century as a royal residence, the Luxembourg Palace and, especially, the Luxembourg Garden was a popular attraction in the heart of Paris featuring French and English gardens, trees, fountains, and sculpture. Cather had a series of portrait photographs taken in the garden in 1920.
Person Annotations
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.
Hambourg, Isabelle McClung (1877-1938). Cather’s longtime
friend. Cather met Isabelle McClung, the daughter of a socially
prominent, Pittsburgh (PA) family, in 1899 in the dressing room of actress
Lizzie Hudson Collier. McClung seems to have been the first woman to
reciprocate Cather’s romantic affections. In 1901, McClung invited Cather to
live in her family’s large home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of
Pittsburgh. She and Cather traveled together to Europe in 1902, and McClung
accompanied Cather on a visit home to Nebraska in 1905. After Cather moved
to New York City in 1906, she frequently visited McClung in Pittsburgh,
finding the familiar house a congenial place to write, and McClung visited
New York City, staying with Cather and Edith Lewis. Cather and McClung also
rented a vacation cabin in Cherry Valley, NY, in 1911, and traveled together
to Virginia in 1913. In late 1915, shortly after the death of her father,
Judge Samuel McClung, Isabelle announced her intention to marry violinist
Jan Hambourg. Cather reacted negatively to the marriage (which took place in
1916) but eventually reconciled herself to it, enjoying long visits with the
Hambourgs in Toronto, Ontario, in 1921 and France in 1923 and 1935. Cather
and Edith Lewis also spent time with the Hambourgs in Paris is 1930 and
1935. The latter trip occurred after Isabelle sought treatment in the U.S.
for the kidney disease that killed her several years later in Italy. Her
death came only four months after Cather’s brother Douglass died, leaving
her feeling bereft. “No other living person cared as much about my work,
through thirty-eight years,” she wrote her brother Roscoe (#2137). After
Isabelle’s death, Jan sent to Cather the six hundred letters from Cather to
Isabelle in his possession, and Cather destroyed them, although a few
letters from Isabelle and Cather postcards to Isabelle are extant.
Hambourg, Jan (1882-1947). Russian-born violinist; Isabelle
McClung’s husband. Hambourg moved with his family to Toronto,
Ontario, in 1910, where he was the head of the violin department at the
Hambourg Conservatory and performed as part of the Hambourg Trio. He married
Isabelle McClung in April 1916. Cather reacted negatively to both Hambourg
and the marriage, but she gradually came to accept him. Beginning in the
1920s, Hambourg left the family conservatory and focused on solo violin
performance in Europe. Cather enjoying long visits with Isabelle and Jan in
Toronto in 1921 and France in 1923 and 1935. She dedicated The Professor’s House (1925) to him (“For Jan, because he likes
narrative”) and asked him to make musical corrections to Lucy Gayheart (1935). When Isabelle died, Jan sent to Cather the
three hundred letters from Cather to Isabelle in his possession, and Cather
destroyed them.
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
