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 |
Bread Loaf, Vt. RECEIVED BY _____
REFERRED TO _____
AUG 04 1922
ANSWERED BY k 8/4
FILED BY _____ August 2 Dear Mr. Knopf1;
My plans3 have slightly changed. I shall be here2 until Sunday, August 6th, and will reach Grand Manan4 on August 8th, where I hope the proof of the book of verse5 will reach me soon.
Please send me two copies of "One of Ours"6 to that address just as soon as the book is made up, bound or unbound. there in the Bay of Fundy7!
I have had a delightful time here8, and am ever so much rested. It's a beautiful place and the people are charming — all young English professors in the old, small colleges; Amherst, Union, Williams etc.
I'll be glad for any news of what Claude Wheeler9's prospects seem to be.
Faithfully W. S. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2529.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2529
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- August 2 [1922]
- Place letter was written
- Ripton, Vermont, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Cather-Knopf Correspondence, The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
In #0610, Cather told Blanche Knopf she was leaving for Grand Manan on 2 August 1922.
The Bread Loaf summer school of English was started in 1920 on the model of Middlebury College’s already active summer schools in foreign languages. It offered master’s-level graduate courses in English and American literature, pedagogy, public speaking and debate, modern drama, and composition. As a faculty member and writer-in-residence in 1922, Cather agreed to give five lectures: three on writing, one on the writer’s relationship to the magazine editor, and the final a question-and-answer session with students.
The name of the protagonist of One of Ours. Although Cather had been convinced not to title the novel Claude, she still often conflated the novel and its central character.
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.
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
April Twilights and Other Poems (1923) by Willa Cather
One of Ours (1922) by Willa Cather
