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 |
Dear Madam:
Miss Cather has left for the Coast to be gone for several months. Before leaving, she asked me to give you the following answer to the requests6 contained in your last letter.
She is willing for you to quote her article entitled "The
Novel Deémeubleé"7 in the book8 which you are publishing.
She is willing for you to quote from "The Professor’s House"9 on condition that her publisher Alfred A. Knopf10, 750-5th Avenue, New York City2, also gives his permission. It will be necessary for you to write to Mr. Knopf, indicating the exact extent of the quotations which you wish to use and to secure his consent before proceeding with this.
She is not willing for you to publish her letter to you, or any part of it, or the facsimile of her signature.
The law, as you doubtless know, does not permit the publication of a letter, or any part of a letter, without the writer’s consent, and the unauthorized use of a letter in this way would render both you and your publishers liable for damages.
I am returning the stamps which you kindly sent to defray the cost of the telegram which you have received. This expense was incurred by Alfred A. Knopf, Publishers, and not by Miss Cather.
Very sincerely yours, Ellen Burns11 Sec'y EB:el12 N. B. The whole point in writing Miss Cather to get permission to publish her letter and signature was permission to get her letter & signature! If I had intended to or had been naïve enough to publish without consent, I would not have made my inquiry. She & Knopfs were the only ones who misinterpreted my request. J.K.P. Miss Josephine Piercy1 708 S. Ballantine Road Bloomington3 Indiana N.B.4 CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0964.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0964
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Josephine K. Piercy1
- Date letter was written
- February 28, 1929
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- McClure MSS. 1865-1949 (LMC 1687), Indiana University, Lilly Library, Bloomington, IN
Individual Annotations
See also #0943 in which Cather herself responds to permission requests from Piercy.
These two sets of initials separated by a colon suggest that Edith Lewis dictated this letter as well as signing it as "Ellen Burns."
Person Annotations
Piercy, Josephine Ketcham (1895-1995). American academic. Born in Indianapolis, IN, Josephine Piercy received a BA (1918) and MA (1919) from Indiana University, a second MA from Columbia University (1923), and a PhD from Yale University (1937). She began as an instructor at Indiana in 1926 and retired from there as a full professor in 1966. Her scholarly focus growing out of her doctoral work was early American literature, but she also edited Modern Writers at Work (1930 and later editions), an anthology for use in creative writing classes. Cather’s correspondence with Piercy about her potential inclusion in this anthology became contentious.
Knopf, Alfred, Jr. (1918-2009) (“Pat”). Publisher; son of Alfred and
Blanche Knopf. Born in White Plains, NY, “Pat” was the only
child of Alfred and Blanche Knopf. Preoccupied with the publishing business
of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., they left him to be cared for by nannies and sent
him to Phillips Exeter Academy, an elite boarding school in New Hampshire.
Willa Cather was very fond of him and corresponded with him about his
reading and education. When he failed to gain entrance to Princeton
University, he ran away with only $15 in his pocket, and his parents found
him in Salt Lake City, UT. Alfred Knopf shared this story, otherwise treated
as a deep family secret, with Cather. Pat subsequently enrolled in Union
College in Schenectady, NY. He wrote asking Cather about the structure of
The Professor’s House (1925), and she permitted
Burgess Johnson, Pat’s English professor at Union, to publish her remarks as
“When I wrote The Professor’s House” in the College
English Association newsletter (1938). Pat’s studies were interrupted when
he was called up for military service in 1941; he was awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross. Awarded his BA in 1943 he joined the family
business, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in 1946 as company secretary and trade
books manager, subsequently becoming vice president of sales and
establishing the Vintage Books paperback imprint. He cofounded the Atheneum
imprint in 1960 and retired as a senior vice-president of Macmillan in 1988.
Burns, Ellen. Name used to sign letters as Cather’s secretary. Several times in the 1920s, letters were signed under the name Ellen Burns, ostensibly Cather’s secretary. These letters were sent when Cather was away from New York City and, in at least one instance, when Cather was feigning being away from New York City. The signatures on these letters and some manuscript corrections strongly suggest that Edith Lewis signed them and likely dictated them (Lewis never learned to type). Put another way, it seems likely that no person named Ellen Burns was actually involved in the production of these letters.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"The Novel Démeublé," New Republic (April 12, 1922) by Willa Cather
Modern Writers at Work (1930) by Josephine K. Piercy
The Professor's House (1925) by Willa Cather
