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 |
APR 29 1930
Filed by ____ Dear Alfred1;
Please bear in mind3 that the slight stiffness in conversation4 is meant to remind the reader that the characters are speaking French, not English, and French of the year 1697. I’ve avoided translating into stilted, foreign English, but I’ve tried never to use a sentence of conversation that cannot be readily turned into French in your mind.
Because of the un-naturalness of making French people speak in English, I’ve use direct discourse as little as possible. All the characters, except the children, are historical personages.
W. S. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2612.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2612
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- [April 28 to 29, 1930]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The date range is established by the date on which the letter was stamped received, Tuesday April 29, 1930. Cather was writing from New York City and enclosing a manuscript, and her usual practice was to have manuscripts hand delivered
- 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
Cather was evidently enclosing a portion of the manuscript of Shadows on the Rock for Knopf to read. She and Edith Lewis would depart in May for France to research the portion of the novel set in Paris as opposed to Quebec, Canada, where most of the novel is set.
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
Work Annotations
Shadows on the Rock (1931) by Willa Cather
