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 think Spanish is the one European language into which THE SONG OF THE LARK3 has not been translated. In business matters Spanish publishers fall a rank below the Italian pubishers - and that is saying a great deal.
I am very pleased by your sympathetic attitude toward the argument I tried to make in my article4 for The Commonweal5, and it is friendly of you to suggest that the Mark Twain Society might publish it in a pamphlet. But I am afraid I must disappoint you there, for the article really belongs to Mr. Knopf6, and he is including7 it in a book of prose essays8 by me, which he will bring out next winter.
I am sorry that I will not be9 in New York2 at all in May. I am leaving the day after tomorrow, to spend that month botanizing in New England10 with some English friends who have come over to study the American spring flowers. I have long promised myself a spring in New England, and I expect to get a great refreshment from it.
Very cordially yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1317.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1317
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Cyril Clemens 1
- Date letter was written
- April 30, 1936
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949, in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library (#6494-6494-i), University of Virginia, Special Collections, Charlottesville, VA
Individual Annotations
Cather's "Escapism" essay was not collected in Not Under Forty (1936).
Cather remained in New York City throughout May 1936.
Person Annotations
Clemens, Cyril (1902-1999). American biographer. A distant cousin of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain), Cyril Clemens was born in St. Louis, MO, to James R. and Kathryn T. Clemens, and received his BA and MA from Washington University (St. Louis). He founded the International Mark Twain Society in 1930 and edited its journal, the Mark Twain Quarterly, from 1936-1982. He wrote biographies and biographical sketches of his famous cousin and other literary figures, including G.K. Chesterton and A.E. Housman. The Mark Twain Society awarded a medal to Cather in 1934; Clemens asked Cather for contributions to the journal and pressed her for information about her 1902 visit to Housman.
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.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
The Song of the Lark (1915) by Willa Cather
"Escapism, A Letter from Willa Cather," Commonweal (April 27, 1936) by Willa Cather
Commonweal
Not Under Forty (1936) by Willa Cather
