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 |
A wine for princes, simply that! And one I had never tasted, though I've been in the South3 a lot. I have been laying the foundation of a long friendship with it tonight. It's soft as a purple butterfly's wing.
The case arrived on Friday. For the first time in history Josephine4 came bursting into my room and into my afternoon nap, like
a joyful elephant. Her husband5 had been in
that Rothschild vineyard6 many times,
because two of his friends worked there. I had the size and history of the vineyard
pretty well ground into me before I could get to the
invaluable Martin Shand7. It is a superb wine, and
shall be reserved for special occasions when I feel a little hard and fo want to have a glow put into things, a kind of
stained glass treatment of pallid daylight.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2546.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2546
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf and Blanche Wolf Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- [December 5, 1933 to May 24, 1935]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The conjectured date range takes into account the overlap between the spans of time when Josephine Bourda, referenced in the letter, worked for Willa Cather and Edith Lewis and the ratification of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ending prohibition on December 5, 1933.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Cather-Knopf Correspondence, The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
Vineyards located on the Médoc penninsula. Baron Nathaniel Rothschild purchased the Château Brane-Mouton vineyard in 1853 and re-named it the Château Mouton Rothschild.
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.
Bourda, Joséphine Marie Bernardine Brun (1892-1959). Cather’s maid. Raised in Lourdes in the Pyrénées region of France, Joséphine’s father Jean-Marie Brun ran a restaurant. In 1909 she married Alphonse Bourda, and they had two children, Marie, born 1910, and Clémentine, born 1912. In 1913 Joséphine, Alphonse, and Joséphine’s father immigrated to the U.S., leaving Marie and Clémentine behind with relatives. Alphonse and Joséphine’s third child, Jeanette, was born in New York City in late 1913. Soon after, Joséphine found work cooking and keeping house for Willa Cather and Edith Lewis in their Five Bank Street apartment. In 1919 the Bourda family was reunited in New York and Joséphine stopped working, but by late 1921, she was back working half days until sometime after 1925. She resumed working for Cather and Lewis in 1932 when they moved to a new apartment at 570 Park Avenue, but in 1935, she and her husband decided to return to France because of his failing health. Cather considered Joséphine a personal friend and praised her as “an artist in her way” (#0563). Cather and Bourda evidently corresponded after her return to France but their letters have not surfaced. She died in the village of Saint Pé de Bigorre.
Bourda, Alphonse (1880-1938). Husband of Joséphine Bourda. Born in Nay, France, Alphonse Bourda married Joséphine Brun in 1909. The couple moved to New York City in 1913, living with Joséphine's father. They had three daughters. The family returned to France in 1935, when Alphonse's health began to fail. He died in 1938 and was buried in the village of Saint Pé de Bigorre. Though Joséphine Bourda worked for Cather and Edith Lewis for many years, it is unclear if Cather ever met Alphonse Bourda.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
A Book of French Wines (1925) by Morton Shand
