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 |
Rec'd OCT 27 1926
Ans. _____ Sunday My Dear Blanche1;
I haven’t seen the Times3 notice4, and I shall avoid seing it—just as well, as it’s by someone5 whose opinion6 one needn’t regard. Don’t you think it is perhaps a mistake to advertise7 that book8 as a “novel”, Blanche? It’s not really that. Couldn’t the ad writer call it a “Story”, merely? That would arouse less antagonism.
I’ll be leaving Jaffrey2 in a few days now, as I’ll stop to make some short visits on the way home9. So after this send all mail to 5 Bank Street10.
Please thank11 Alfred12 for the Chorleys13. They are beautifully printed, and I hope they will do well. Very soon I’ll be seeing you both, until then. Good Luck.
Yours W. S. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0854.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0854
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Blanche Wolf Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- [October 24, 1926]
- Place letter was written
- Jaffrey, New Hampshire, 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
While comparing My Mortal Enemy (1926) with Cather's A Lost Lady (1923), Kronenberger argues that the new novel "has fallen short, rather far short, of her earlier level." He goes on to question whether the book should be called a novel, since "it has no real continuity, forms no organic whole."
Blanche Knopf responded on 20 October 1926 that future advertisements would "merely state that this is Miss Cather's newest book" and blamed the previous use of the word "novel" on their enthusiasm for the book.
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 20 October 1926, Alfred Knopf sent Cather two copies of Chorley's essays as edited by Ernest Newman and just published by Knopf.
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.
Kronenberger, Louis (1904-1980). American writer, editor, and critic. Born in Cincinnati, OH, and educated at the University of Cincinnati, Kronenberger moved to New York in 1924 to pursue writing. He served as an editor at Boni and Liveright (1926-1933) and at Alfred A. Knopf (1933-1935), and was well-known as the longtime theater critic for Time magazine (1938-1961). He wrote and edited a large number of books and plays on a range of topics. As a critic, he praised Cather's early novels but was critical of her later period, seeing Cather's historical fictions, like Shadows on the Rock (1931), as "running out of the present to hide in the past."
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
New York Times Book Review
"Willa Cather Fumbles for Another Lost Lady," New York Times Book Review (October 24, 1926) by Louis Kronenberger
My Mortal Enemy (1926) by Willa Cather
Thirty Years' Musical Recollections (1926) by Henry F. Chorley
