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 rather bashfully ask a favor of the Houghton Mifflin Company and if you think it not in order, please tell me so without hesitation. By the last statement sent me the company owes me $1,091.63. This sum covers the sales to September 30, 1940. I wonder if the company would be willing to send me a check for this sum ($1,091.63) in the present month, November, instead of in March 1941? I always pay my income tax from January 1st to January 1st. My income in 1941 will evidently be larger than it has ever been before in any one year, and I would like to receive whatever is due me at the present time within the present year, in order to reduce my 1941 tax as much as possible. Alfred Knopf3 is making a first printing of 50,000 and the Book of the Month Club payment, I believe, falls due in January. You can readily see that it behooves me to collect as much as possible of the money now due me before January 1, 1941. If the company would prefer a commission on money thus paid four months in advance of their usual date of payment, I would, of course, be willing to accept those terms.
On the whole, I am satisfied with the results of the election. I believe Franklin4 will do more than the other man for Great Britain5, and that is what I chiefly care about.
Faithfully yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1504.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1504
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Ferris Greenslet1
- Date letter was written
- November 9, 1940
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944 (MS AM 1925), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Person Annotations
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.
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.
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945). American president.
Roosevelt was elected the 32nd president of the United States in
1932. He began his presidency during the Great Depression and served for
four terms (longer than any other president before him or since) up until
his death near the end of World War II. As president, Roosevelt greatly
expanded the powers of the federal government through the New Deal. Cather
felt “satisfied” with his election, although she did not consider him to be
a “giant intellect” (#1504, #2104).
Place Annotations
