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 |
UNION CLASS OF SERVICE
This is a full-rate
Telegram or Cable-
gram unless its de-
ferred character is in-
dicated by a suitable
sign above or preced-
ing the address. SIGNS
DL = Day Letter
NM = Night Message
NL = Night Letter
LCO = Deferred Cable
CLT = Cable Letter
WLT = Week-End Letter NEWCOMB CARLTON, PRESIDENT J. C. WILLEVER, FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT The filing time as shown in the date line on full-rate telegrams and day letters, and the time of receipt at destination as shown on all messages, is STANDARD TIME. Received at THE QUICKEST, SUREST AND SAFEST WAY TO SEND MONEY IS BY TELEGRAPH OR CABLE 1928 APR 13 AM 12 51 WMA339 48 NL=REDCLOUD NEBR2 12 BLANCHE W KNOPF1= 730 FIFTH AVE NEWYORK NY3=
MAKING REPAIRS ON THE HOUSE4 HAS DETAINED ME UNEXPECTEDLY5 BESIDES I WAS TERRIBLY TIRED AND FOUND THIS A PLEASANT PLACE TO REST STOP I WILL SURELY BE IN NEWYORK MAY FIRST PERHAPS SOONER STOP PLEASE HAVE MY MAIL FORWARDED UNTIL APRIL SIXTEEN MY LOVE TO YOU AS ALWAYS=
WILLA CATHER.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0930.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0930
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only of telegram.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Blanche Wolf Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- April 13, 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
541 N. Seward Street (Red Cloud, NE): Built circa 1899, Cather’s parents, Charles F. and Mary Virginia Boak Cather, purchased this home in 1903. Cather stayed here when she returned to Red Cloud to visit her parents, returning for the last time in 1931 following her mother’s death. At that time, Cather's sister Elsie inherited the house, returning to Red Cloud for summer vacations for most of the 1930s. Willa Cather contributed to the maintenance of the property until Elsie sold the house in 1945 to W. H. Maynard. By 1946, it was being used as a local hospital. Willa Cather used the house as the prototype for the second Ferguesson house in her short story “The Best Years.”
On 26 March 1928 Knopf cabled expressing concern that she had not heard from Cather for some time.
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.
Place Annotations
