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 |
What original ideas you have for a vacation pastime, to be sure! I like a retreat from the world, but not just in the way you have selected. Well, when you do go to New Mexico3 to ride, you'll be happier with your appendix out, I can tell you that. I am doing lots of walking up here2, on rather rough trails that run along the edge of the sea-cliffs. There are few beaches, and anyhow it's too cold to bathe. We have had only one day when the thermometer went above eighty-two. The Italian air fleet on their return trip went right over this island, right over my little house at 2:15 in the afternoon and wrecked my afternoon nap. I thought them ugly beasts, with their ribs all showing, and shook my fist at them.
I hope you are over the uncomfortable part of an operation by this time. You must come to see me whenever you are in town next winter, and let's plan a theatre party, 3 on our own, without letting anyone chaperone us! I'd love that.
Have a good time while you are getting well, and make them give you good things to eat. I wish I could send you one of the lobsters we pull out here.
With much love, my dear boy,Your special friend Willa Cather
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1188.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1188
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf, Jr. 1
- Date letter was written
- August 15 [1933]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The conjectured year is derived from Cather's reference to Pat Knopf's appendectomy, which occurred in August 1933 (see #2663).
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- , Wellesley College, Margaret Clapp Library, Wellesley, MA
Person Annotations
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
Burges 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.
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.
