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 |
MEDICAL DIRECTOR
E. D. KREMERS, M. D.
ASSOCIATE MEDICAL DIRECTOR
J. A. COLLIE, M. D.
RESIDENT PHYSICIAN
ETHEL FANSON, M. D.
PATHOLOGIST LAS ENCINAS
SANITARIUM3
A PLACE FOR THE TREATMENT OF GENERAL DISEASES
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA BOARD OF DIRECTORS
GEORGE DOCK, M. D., PRES.
W. JARVIS BARLOW, M. D.
F. C. E. MATTISON, M. D.
STEPHEN SMITH, M. D.
F. H. MACPHERSON Ans'd by ____
APR 7 1930
Filed by ____ April 3 Dear Mr Stimson1
Out here2 a dozen or more "Archbishops"4 have been sent me for autograph that are not bound in green with the paper label, but in brown cloth, title stamped in red on the front.5
Alfred Knopf6 promised me that the green binding with paper label should be the uniform binding for all my books after first publication of the Archbishop. This “sport” seems to be an early printing, but I wonder why? I’ll be in New York7 two weeks from now.
Cordially Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2611.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2611
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- George M. Stimson1
- Date letter was written
- April 3, [1930]
- Place letter was written
- Pasadena, California, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Cather-Knopf Correspondence, The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
Las Encinas Sanitarium (Pasadena, CA): Established in 1904 by Dr. James H. McBride, the Southern California Sanitarium for Nervous Disorders was renamed Las Encinas Hospital for Nervous Disorders in 1917, and finally to Las Encinas Sanitarium in 1928. Willa Cather’s mother, Mary Virginia Boak Cather, spent the last three years of her life here, where Cather visited her in 1929, 1930, and 1931.
Cather's description matches the second edition, first printing, trade issue of Death Comes for the Archbishop, published 9 November 1929.
Person Annotations
Stimson, George Mirick (1882-1950). Printer employed at Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Born in Ponta Delgada in the Azores to an American father and an English mother, by 1916 George Stimson was working as a printer at the Riverside Press of the Houghton Mifflin Co. In the late 1920s, he worked in the production department of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and Willa Cather corresponded with him about design and printing issues. By 1942 he had left Knopf for the Macmillan Co.
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
Work Annotations
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather
