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 |
REFERRED TO _____
SEP 8 1921
ANSWERED BY K 9/8
FILED BY _____ Red Cloud2 Sept. 5th Dear Mr. Knopf1:
I hope you are reconciled3 to "One of Ours"4. I feel more and more that it is the only way out for us. Fanny Butcher5 thought it good.
Please send a cut cut, suitable for newspaper
publication, of the photograph6 of me
that you used in your catalogue7, to
Mrs. Warren
Blackwell8
3618 Farnham St
Omaha, Neb.9
And label it with my name. They10 want a "dressy" picture and want it soon.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2516.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2516
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only. Alfred Knopf's response to this letter is typed on the verso of Cather's letter and dated 8 September 1921.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- September 5 [1921]
- Accompanying this letter
-
Includes one typewritten letter from Alfred Knopf to Willa Cather dated 5 September 1921 on verso of Cather's letter.
- Place letter was written
- Red Cloud, Nebraska, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Cather-Knopf Correspondence, The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
On 7 September 1921, Knopf wrote that he was neither "for" nor "against" One of Ours as a title and would be "entirely satsified" if she retained the title "Claude."
Alfred Knopf used this 1902 portrait of Cather in The Borzoi 1920, Being a Sort of Record of Five Years of Publishing. The volume encompassed essays by and about Knopf authors, including Cather's "The Art of Fiction" and H.L. Mencken's "Willa Cather," and concluded with a catalog of Knopf books.
The Omaha Society of Fine Arts had invited Cather to speak on 29 October 1921.
Person Annotations
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.
Bokum, Frances Amanda Butcher (1888-1987) (“Fanny”).
American newspaper critic and bookstore owner. Born in Fredonia,
KS, Butcher moved to Chicago, IL, as a child. She received an A.A. from
Lewis Institute in 1908 and a BA from the University of Chicago in 1910. In
1911, Floyd Dell of the Chicago Evening Post assigned
her to review Alexander’s Bridge (1912). Cather wrote
the anonymous reviewer care of the Post, beginning
their correspondence and friendship. From 1913 until her retirement in 1963,
Butcher wrote for the Chicago Tribune, becoming
literary editor in 1922. She ran Fanny Butcher Books in Chicago from 1919
until 1927, when she sold it to Doubleday. Cather frequently saw Butcher
when she changed trains in Chicago and closely followed Butcher’s reviews of
her works, often writing to her about them. She also relied on Butcher’s
knowledge of the book business and particularly book distribution in the
Midwest. Their extant correspondence begins in 1920, although in her memoir
Many Lives—One Love (1972), Butcher
paraphrases earlier letters. Butcher married Richard Drummond Bokum in 1935.
Blackwell, Adele Whitcomb (1877-1948). Member of the Omaha Society of Fine Arts. Blackwell served the Omaha Society of Fine Arts as chairman for the lecture committee and invited Cather to speak at the Hotel Fontenelle on 29 October 1921. She had graduated from Vassar College in 1893 and was a member of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
One of Ours (1922) by Willa Cather
The Borzoi: 1920: Being a Sort of Record of Five Years of Publishing (1920)
