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 |
JAN 11 1928
Filed by _____ Monday Dear Blanche1;
Please write this impulsive German lady that I am in inaccessible deserts. Cable3 Heinemann permission to use the letter4 to the Commonweal5 as a circular, and I wish they'd send me a few of the circulars to mail to clubs.
Please ask Miss Aaron6 to mail me a dozen of those biographical booklets7. I need 'em to feed to clubs.
Hastily W. S. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0921.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0921
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Blanche Wolf Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- [January 9, 1928]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
January 9, 1928, was the Monday before the letter was stamped received on January 11, 1928.
- Place letter was written
- Red Cloud, Nebraska, 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
On 4 January 1927, Knopf wrote reporting that Cather's British publisher wanted permission to use her published letter to the Commonweal about Death Comes for the Archbishop in a circular.
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.
Aaron, M. Manley. Alfred Knopf’s secretary. As secretary to the president of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., Willa Cather’s publisher, Manley Aaron was responsible for clerical matters, such as tracking Cather’s address as she traveled or mailing her supplies. However, Alfred Knopf also delegated to Aaron the task of negotiating with magazines for the publication of Cather’s short stories collected in Obscure Destinies (1932), and she took direct responsibility for other matters for Cather and other authors as well.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"Letter from Willa Cather to the Editor of the Commonweal, A," Commonweal (November 27, 1927) by Willa Cather
Commonweal
Willa Cather: A Biographical Sketch, an English Opinion, and an Abridged Bibliography (1926) by Anonymous [Willa Cather]
