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 |
In the new yearbook of the National Institue of Arts and Letters, I find my address given as 570 Park Avenue3.
I am giving up my lease there in May. Consequently, that address will not reach me during the coming year. In the next printing of the yearbook, please correct4 the error and give my address as care of Alfred A. Knopf5, 501 Madison Avenue, New York2. I am in New York, so seldom, that the surest way to reach me is through Mr. Knopf.
Sincerely yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1361.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1361
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Grace Davis Vanamee 1
- Date letter was written
- April 9, 1937
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Cather, Willa (1873-1947), Member Archives, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
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.
On 19 April 1937, Vanamee wrote confirming that the address would be changed.
Person Annotations
Vanamee, Grace Delle Davis (1876-1946). Assistant to the president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Born in North Adams, MA, daughter of George and Electra Magoon Davis, Grace Davis attended the Emerson College of Oratory in Boston from 1899 to 1900. She published occasional verse, taught, and lectured in schools until her marriage to lawyer William Vanamee in 1909. After his death, she joined the staff of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1915, becoming assistant to the president from 1921 to 1941; she corresponded with Cather and many other writers on Academy business. In the 1920s Grace Vanamee was active in Republican politics in New York, once running on a ticket headed by Fiorello LaGuardia. She retired to Florida, where she died.
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
