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 |
Your inquiry has been brought to my attention. I certainly cannot remember whether I made the change you speak of or not. But you have only to consult the authorized edition of APRIL TWILIGHTS3, published by Alfred Knopf4 in 1923, to find out whether the change is of my making or not. Any changes I made in the first edition were followed in the Knopf edition.
Very sincerely yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2008.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2008
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Mr. Wallack1
- Date letter was written
- Feburary 16, 1932
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Misc. MS-131 (ms-131), Smith College, Mortimer Rare Book Room, Northampton, MA
Person Annotations
Wallack, Mr. There is insufficient evidence for a definitive identification, but Cather’s correspondent may have been Nathan N. Wallack (1895-1951), an American book and manuscript collector.
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
Work Annotations
April Twilights and Other Poems (1923), by Willa Cather
