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 |
OCT 27
Filed by _____ Saturday My Dear Blanche1:
I’ll be lecturing3 at the University of Chicago November 17-19, so I can’t speak for the University Club in N.Y.
Surely I’ll sign the books for Mr. Mullen4. I’ll be at 5 Bank Street5 November 2nd.
Thank you so much for the score of “Patience”6 and for the books you sent me. I loved “The Sailor’s Return.”7
The Arch Bishop8 is doing well.
Faithfully W. S. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0799.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0799
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Blanche Wolf Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- [October 24, 1925]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The date of this letter is established by Blanche Knopf's response on October 27, 1925
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., Records (MS-00062), University of Texas, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin, TX
Individual Annotations
At the invitation of Nathaniel Butler, Cather gave one of the William Vaughn Moody lectures at the University of Chicago's Mandel Hall on 17 November 1925.
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.
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.
Mullen, John J. (1884-1980). Knopf bookseller. Born in Boston, MA, John Mullen was an exclusive bookseller for Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. from about 1915 to 1929 and became acquainted with many of its authors, including Cather. Around 1934, Mullen became sales manager for Viking Press in New York City and worked for the company until his retirement in 1965.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Patience (April 23, 1881), by Arthur Sullivan and W.S. Gilbert
The Sailor's Return (1925), by David Garnett
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), by Willa Cather
