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 |
I am certainly a pig, or I would have thanked you before this for the splendid package of books you sent me. I haven’t looked into the Bullett5, but all the others are good. Work and the fine weather have kept me from writing letters. My excuse for not thanking you for the books is - - - industry! This morning I finished the first draft of Lucy Gayheart6. I’m by no means out of the jungle, but now I know there’s a trail through, and a reason reason for going through—at least, there is to me. It will take a hard winter’s work, and you, my good friends, will help to keep the dogs off me, I know. I know, because you’ve done it more than once. I haven’t learned to work in that apartment7 awfully well; maybe I can arrange things better this winter. If I can’t I’ll come back to Jaffrey2!
I had a cunning note from Pat8 last week.
The weather is glorious—my ankle my ankle does splendidly on a four mile walk, I’ve not tried it further. Wild clouds and very low ones, as in France9; the mountain dark purple all day yesterday, the top of it powdered with snow, and the sky rolling masses of silver and purple and black from morning until night. (This sounds if I were trying to work off some “writing” on you, but since you know the mountain, there’s some point in mentioning it's present complexion.)
With love to the both of you Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1199.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1199
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Blanche Wolf Knopf and Alfred Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- October 26 [1933]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Blanche Knopf's and Alfred Knopf's separate responses, both dated October 30, 1933.
- Place letter was written
- Jaffrey, New Hampshire, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Knopf Records (689.1), University of Texas, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin, TX
Individual Annotations
570 Park Avenue (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis from December 11, 1932, until her death, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, near Central Park. They had apartment 7D. Lewis continued to live there until her own death.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Work Annotations
The Quick and the Dead (1933), by Gerald Bullett
Lucy Gayheart (1935), by Willa Cather
