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 |
JUL 16 1928
Filed by _____ Whale Cove
Grand Manan2 July 11 Dear Alfred1;
I'm busy3 settling my house and grounds after a week of good food and drink in Quebec4. The ocean5 is my front yard, the pine forest my back yard, and the nearest neighbor is a quarter of a mile away. The only light I can see at night is the wink of a light house on a lone rock out in the Bay of Fundy6. Every day I cut down as many trees7 as the Kaiser8. No snakes, and nearly always too windy for mosqiutoes.
Please ask Miss Aaron9 to send me a complete Borzoi10 catalogue, and to write me the Archbishop11 sales up to date.
Yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0942.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0942
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- July 11 [1928]
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., Records (MS-00062), University of Texas, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin, TX
Individual Annotations
On 3 July 1928 Knopf wrote Cather confirming the details of their financial arrangements for the edition of Death Comes for the Archbishop to be illustrated by Harold von Schmidt, asking her to sign and return a copy of the letter. He also inquired about Cather's new house and reported on the health and travels of his father and his wife.
During World War I, Wilhelm II began cutting down trees to build up his physical strength, and he continued cutting down trees and keeping count of how many he cut during his post-war exile.
A Borzoi logo was part of the Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., imprint.
Person Annotations
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.
Wilhelm II (1859-1941). German Kaiser and King of Prussia.
Wilhelm II came into power in 1888 and was widely blamed for the
outbreak of WWI. Although Wilhelm had built up German naval forces, he only
declared war on Russia after pressured to do so by his generals. Following
the war, Wilhelm was forced to abdicate and spent the rest of his life
exiled to the Netherlands.
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
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
Work Annotations
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), by Willa Cather
