Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 |
RE[missing]
SEP 29 1921
ANSWERED BY k 9/29
FILED BY _____ Red Cloud2, September 25 Dear Mr. Knopf1;
All right about the cut3. I have warned the Omaha4 people5 about the copyright line.
I shall arrive in New York6 sometime during the first week of November. I have to stop in Lincoln7, Omaha, and Chicago8 on the way.
Houghton Mifflin write me that they will not make a larg
new printing9 of "Alexander's Bridge"10 unless there is an increased demand for it, and I thingk they have
very few copies left. I wonder whether they would turn over the plates to you11 for a small consideration?
I don't care about that story, myself, and would just as lief see it go out of
print, but I remember you liked it and saw selling possibilities in it. If you had
it, and could bring it out about six months after "One of
Ours"12, there might be some sale for it. This is merely a suggestion.
Please thank Mrs. Knopf13 for her letter about the ms14. It has just come, and I am so pleased to know that she got a thrill out of the story15.
W. S. CInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2519.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2519
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- September 25 [1921]
- 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
See #2516
The Omaha Society of Fine Arts had invited Cather to speak on 29 October 1921.
On 6 August 1921, Ferris Greenslet informed Cather that there were only six printed copies of Alexander's Bridge and they would not "reprint under the present difficult conditions unless there were substantial orders in sight."
Rather than turn over the plates to Knopf, Houghton Mifflin reissued Alexander's Bridge with a new introduction by Cather in 1922.
Abbreviation for manuscript.
Blanche Knopf had likely read a typescript of One of Ours.
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.
Knopf, Blanche Wolf (1894-1966). Vice President of New York
publisher Alfred Knopf, Inc. Blanche Wolf founded Alfred Knopf,
Inc., in 1915 with her future husband Alfred Knopf. They married in 1916 and
their son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Active in the business
throughout her life, Blanche Knopf recruited a number of prominent European
and Latin American writers to the Knopf list (in translation) by traveling
to meet them. In recognition of her work with writers such as Jean-Paul
Sartre and Albert Camus, she was inducted into the French Legion of Honor in
1949. She became president of Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1957 when her husband
became chairman. Through her work in the publishing house she also promoted
writers of the Harlem Renaissance such as Langston Hughes. Cather’s letters
to Knopf focus primarily on business but the two also became friends.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Alexander's Bridge (1912) by Willa Cather
One of Ours (1922) by Willa Cather
