Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 |
Every additional letter is a curse at Christmas time! But I want to tell you that I am at last free from dental surgery and to thank you for remembering my birthday. When I next come to the office I please introduce me to the editor3 of Borzoi Battledore4!!
Faithfully yours Willa Cather December 18thInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0811.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0811
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Blanche Wolf Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- Decemeber 18 [1946]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (MS-00062), University of Texas, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin, TX
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.
Bragdon, Lillian J. (1890-1994). American author, editor, and critic. Bragdon lived in New York City and worked for decades as a successful author of educational books for children, including Tell Me the Time, Please (1936), The Land of William Tell (1953), and Meet the Remarkable Adams Family (1967). She was also a prominent editor and reviewer of children’s literature, serving as the head of the education department of the American News Company and working at Knopf as the juvenile editor and, in 1945, the editor of the Borzoi Battledore.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Borzoi Battledore
