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 |
No4, my good friend1, I cannot let Mrs. Harris5 go into any omnibus. I refused her to Alfred Knopf6 and must refuse her to you.
Willa Cather, Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2(( Black spider bite on right hand. Must excuse informality
W. Cather Grand Manan2 New Brunswick Canada Mr. Alexander Woollcott1 Bomoseen3 Vermont U. S. A. NORTH HEAD N.B.2 AM JUL 26 37Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1370.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1370
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only. Includes one envelope, handwritten. Includes enclosed letter from Alexander Woollcott to Willa Cather at the end of which Cather has written her letter.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alexander Woollcott1
- Date letter was written
- [July 26, 1937]
- Accompanying this letter
-
Includes enclosed letter from Alexander Woollcott to Willa Cather dated July 18, at the end of which Cather has written her letter on the second leaf of Woollcott's.
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Woollcott, Alexander, 1887-1943. Alexander Woollcott correspondence, ca. 1856-1943 (MS AM 1449), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Individual Annotations
In Woollcott's letter of 18 July 1936 (on which Cather wrote her response), he requests permission to include "Old Mrs. Harris" in Woollcott's Second Reader (1937).
Person Annotations
Woollcott, Alexander (1887-1943). American critic and radio
personality. Born in Phalanx, NJ, Alexander Woollcott graduated
from Hamilton College in 1909. Joining the New York
Times as a cub reporter after graduation, he became drama critic in
1914. After serving in the U.S. Army as a reporter for the Stars and Stripes (1917-1918), he returned to the Times and subsequently worked for the New York Herald, the New York
World, and the New Yorker and was associated
with the Algonquin Round Table group in the 1920s and 30s. Throughout his
career Woollcott was known for his flamboyance and acerbic wit. He became
host of “The Town Crier” radio program in 1929. He retired to an estate in
Vermont in the 1930s, but he returned to New York City in 1940 to play
Sheridan Whiteside, the title character of George Kaufman and Moss Hart’s
play The Man Who Came to Dinner, an annoying New York
critic and radio celebrity modeled on himself. It is not clear when Cather
met Woollcott, but she called him “one of my best friends” (#1633) and was
pleased when he “serenaded” her on his radio program and responded
positively to his request that her Death Comes for the
Archbishop (1927) be put into an Armed Services Edition. However,
she declined to allow him to anthologize her work or have it read over the
air.
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
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.
Work Annotations
"Old Mrs. Harris," Obscure Destinies (1932) by Willa Cather
