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 |
If you want to use a story of mine3, I should think you might use either "Paul's Case"4 or "The Sculptor's Funeral"5. I think Mr. Knopf6 would give you permission to use one of these.
Very sincerely yours, Willa CatherPlease return
F L PatteeInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0868.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0868
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Fred Lewis Pattee 1
- Date letter was written
- January 3, 1927
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Fred Lewis Pattee Papers, Pennsylvania State University, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, University Park, PA
Individual Annotations
In #0862, Cather rejected Pattee's request to anthologize "The Willing Muse" (1907).
Person Annotations
Pattee, Fred Lewis (1863-1950). American educator and author.
Born on a New Hampshire farm, Pattee worked his way through
Dartmouth College, graduating in 1888. He was appointed assistant professor
at Pennsylvania State College in 1894 and promoted to full professor a year
later. Pattee wrote literary histories and edited the anthologies that first
made teaching college-level courses in American literature possible. His Century Readings for a Course in American Literature
(1919, 2nd ed. 1926) was widely adopted. He wrote Cather in 1926 seeking
permission to include “The Willing Muse” (1907) in an anthology, but she
suggested “The Sculptor’s Funeral” (1905) instead. The story appeared in his
Century Readings in the American Short Story
(1927).
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
"Paul's Case," The Troll Garden (1905), by Willa Cather
"The Sculptor's Funeral," The Troll Garden (1905), by Willa Cather
