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 |
GRAND MANAN2
NEW BRUNSWICK
CANADA Dear Roscoe1;
5The twins4 and I get jipped again .! It's too bad that a very
successful book5 doesn't give one what one
wants, but it seems only to give more trouble. A crisis has come up6 between my American publisher
and my English publisher, so that after much correspondence and worry I have
decided to change publishers in England7. It has taken so much time and fussing that it has
pretty well done me out of my summer's fun, of which the twins were to be
the chief part. Tell them I am more disappointed than they can be, for they
have more play-time than I. But it's only a postponement. We will yet have a
joyous summer on this lovely little
island2. The advance sale is grand, fifty-five thousand, not
counting the Book-of-the-Month club. Out of the latter I get practically nothing8; it's a
cheat, but it's supposed to be fine advertising. I think it a mistake to let
them have the book, I never would consent to it before, but Knopf9 wanted to try it once, and it's
foolish to oppose your publisher all the time; he loses interest if he can't
experiment and try new devices.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2099.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2099
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- [July to August 1931]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Cather arrived on Grand Manan, the location from which she wrote this letter, in early July 1931 and was corresponding with Blanche Knopf about the situation with her British publishers (referenced in this letter) on July 31, 1931 (#2628). Her mother died on August 30, 1931. These contexts suggest that this letter may have been written as early as July but before her mother’s death at the end of August.
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection (MS316), University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
Willa Cather switched from her previous English publisher William Heinemann, to Cassell and Company Limited for the English publication of Shadows on the Rock (1931). In a September 1931 letter to Mr. Frere-Reeves of Heinemann publishers, Cather describes her reasons for the change (see #1881).
According to Willa Cather's personal ledger, she received $5,000 from the Book of the Month Club's payment for Shadows on the Rock.
Person Annotations
Cather, Roscoe (1877-1945) (“Ross”). Cather’s brother.
Roscoe was born in Virginia, the second child and oldest son of
Charles and Virginia Cather. After graduating from Red Cloud (NE) High
School in 1895, he taught country school for two years, attended the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln for one year (1897-1898), taught high
school in Carlton, NE, and Oxford, NE, and finally became superintendent of
schools in Fullerton, NE. There he met fellow teacher Meta Schaper, whom he
married in 1907. They relocated to Lander, WY, in 1909, where he opened an
abstract office and where their three children, Virginia and twins Margaret
and Elizabeth, were born. In 1921, they moved to Casper, WY, where Roscoe
became president of the Wyoming Trust Company, and in 1937 to Colusa, CA,
where Roscoe and his brother Douglass had acquired a controlling interest in
the First Savings Bank of Colusa. Roscoe served as president of the bank
until his death. Willa visited Roscoe and his family in Wyoming several
times and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926
trip to New Mexico with Roscoe, Meta, and their children and a 1941 San
Francisco vacation with Roscoe and Meta. She also relied on him to handle
family-related business as well as personal financial matters, and he was
one of her chief correspondents throughout her life. Roscoe served as a
prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Ickis, Elizabeth Cather (1915-1978) (half of the “twinnies”).
Cather’s niece. Elizabeth and her twin sister Margaret were born
in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to
Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of
Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on
Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters
to them she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time.
Elizabeth moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937 and married Lynn S.
Ickis, an electrical engineer, in April 1938. They lived in Cleveland, OH,
and had two children, Margaret and John.
Shannon, Margaret Cather (1915-1996) (half of the “twinnies”).
Cather’s niece. Margaret and her twin sister Elizabeth were born
in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to
Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of
Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on
Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters
to them, she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time.
Margaret moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937. After she married
Richard Shannon in September 1938, she moved with him to Boston, MA, where
he earned an MBA from Harvard University in Cambridge. In 1940 they moved to
the New York City area, where their first child, Richard, was born in 1943.
The Shannons moved to Washington, DC, in 1944, where their daughter Kathryne
was born. Cather did not see Margaret again after she left New York, and
Margaret’s other three children, Patricia, Margaret, and Elizabeth, were
born after Cather’s death. Kathryne and Patricia became caretakers for a
large family archive of letters preserved by their mother, which they
donated to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as the Roscoe and Meta Cather
Collection.
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
Shadows on the Rock (1931) by Willa Cather
