Greenslet, Ferris (1875-1959). American editor and writer. Born in Glens Falls, NY, Ferris Greenslet earned a BA (1897) from Wesleyan University and a PhD (1900) from Columbia University. He served as associate editor at the Atlantic Monthly from 1902 to 1907, and married Ella Stoothoff Hulst in 1903; they had two children, Marguerite (born 1904) and George (born 1906). As an author he specialized in biography. He became literary editor at Houghton Mifflin, the Boston publisher of the Atlantic, c. 1908 and was socially and professionally acquainted with Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett, who may have introduced him to Cather. He evidently solicited Cather to submit Alexander’s Bridge (1912), her first published novel, to Houghton Mifflin. In 1910, when Greenslet became editor in chief of the trade department, Roger Scaife divided his shares as a director of the company with him, and the two presented themselves to authors as partners, with Scaife handling book advertising and format and Greenslet negotiating contracts and supervising editing; when Greenslet was absent from the office, Scaife handled correspondence with Cather. Greenslet became a director of Houghton Mifflin in 1919 and manager of the trade department in 1933. Cather left Houghton Mifflin as a publisher for Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., because she became dissatisfied with the production and advertising of her books. However, she remained on cordial terms with Greenslet and undertook several projects for him after her departure. Her extant letters to him constitute one of the largest groups to a single correspondent.

Tennant, Edward Priaulx (1st Baron Glenconner) (1859-1920). British peer and politician; Stephen Tennant’s father. Born the eldest surviving son of a baronet in the Scottish Border region, Edward Tennant was educated at Eton College and Trinity College Cambridge. He traveled extensively in Africa, India, and America, and held a variety of political positions over many years. He succeeded to his father’s baronetcy in 1906 and was raised to the peerage as Baron Glenconner, of The Glen in County Peebles, in 1911. He and his wife, Pamela Wyndham Tennant, had six children who lived to adulthood, including Stephen Tennant, who became Willa Cather’s friend. After Baron Glenconner’s death, his wife married Sir William Grey.

Connolly, Cyril Vernon (1903-1974). British writer and critic. Born in Coventry, England, son of Major Matthew Connolly and Muriel Vernon Connolly, Cyril Connolly won scholarships to Eton College and then Balliol College, Oxford. Although comparatively poor, he became acquainted with many of the important literary, political, and social figures of the inter-war period; he also travelled extensively, especially in Europe. He became a book reviewer for the New Statesman in 1926, co-founded the literary magazine Horizon in 1940, then became a chief book reviewer for the London Sunday Times. Cather knew of Connolly through his review of Stephen Tennant’s Leaves from a Missionary’s Notebook (1937).

Grey, Edward (1862-1933). British statesman. Born in London, England, Sir Edward Grey was created a viscount in 1885, sitting in the House of Commons until 1916. In 1905 Grey was appointed British Foreign Secretary, serving for eleven years. During WWI, he created the secret Treaty of London, and in 1919 he visited the U.S. to advocate for its entry into the League of Nations. In 1922 Grey married Pamela Wyndham, becoming the stepfather of Stephen Tennant, a friend of Cather and Edith Lewis.

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.