Lawlor, Patrick Anthony. (1893-1979). New Zealand journalist and author. Born in Wellington, New Zealand, to David Roche Lawlor and Margret Dennehy Lawlor, Patrick Lawlor attended St. Patrick’s College from 1908 to 1909. In 1910 Lawlor began his career as a journalist with the Evening Host, later working for the Dominion, the Hawke’s Bay Herald, the New Zealand Times, the New Zealand Artist’s Annual, and the New Zealand Railways Magazine. He also wrote and published over forty books and booklets (including under the pen name, Shibli Bagarag) including The House of Templemore (1938), Daniel Mahoney’s Secret (1939), Old Wellington Days (1959), and More Wellington Days (1962). In 1943 Cather gave Lawlor permission to reprint her essay “Katherine Mansfield.”

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.