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 |
MMA
8/14 Ans'd by _____
AUG 14 1931
Filed by _____ ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ August 11th Dear Alfred1;
Please have a polite letter written to the French Professor from the office.
I am wondering whether you could not get the Times3
News Bureau to destroy the negative of that hideous picture which was used on the
cover4 of the magazine "Time"5 lately. I don't object to it because
it is as ugly as mud, but because it looks crippled and deformed. That negative had
a bad history; the Times ought to be ashamed of it. Seven or eight years ago, when
Adler's6 office was in the Times Building,
I went to his office to sign the limited edition of something7 - - - April
Twilights8, it must have been. While I was signing, a man from the Times
(tipped off by Adler) came in with a camera. I looked up, very angry and crouching
down to escape him, and he snapped me in the act of protest. He admitted it was a
low thing to do, and promised on his honor o to
destroy the negative. I afterward ,on the same morning, went into their studio and let them
take some pictures, one of which was used on the Book
Review9
front page10 some weeks ago. But they did not destroy the other.
I do think if somebody on the Times were courteously approached, it would be possible to get possession11 of this negative. I will promise to give them a new photograph just as soon as I return to New York12. I'd be mightly pleased if you could get possession of that negative.
Faithfully yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2631.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2631
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- August 11, 1931
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Cather-Knopf Correspondence, The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
A photograph of Cather seated at a table with pen in hand appeared on the cover of the 3 August 1931 issue of Time.
In a 26 July 1926 letter, Alfred Knopf's secretary Manley Aaron directed Cather to go to Elmer Adler's office at the Times Annex Building on West 43rd Street on 28 July 1926 to sign the limit pages for My Mortal Enemy (1926).
A photograph of Cather appeared on the front page of the 8 August 1931 New York Times Book Review, accompanying "Willa Cather's Tale of Canada: 'Shadows on the Rock' Is a Story of Early Days of Canada" by John Chamberlain. Cather is wearing the same clothing as in the photograph published on the cover of Time (see above), but she is seated with her hand in her lap.
On 26 August 1931 Manley Aaron wrote that she had obtained the photographic negative.
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.
Adler, Elmer (1884-1962). American printer, publisher,
editor, and author. After moving from Rochester, NY, to New York
City, Adler founded the Pynson Printers in 1922. He also became a partner in
Random House in 1922 and founded the Colophon: A Book
Collector’s Quarterly in 1930. Adler’s Pynson press produced deluxe
limited editions of April Twilights and Other Poems
(1923) and December Night (1933) (an excerpt from Death Comes for the Archbishop). He also designed the
edition of Death Comes for the Archbishop illustrated
by Harold von Schmidt (1927), the title page for My Mortal
Enemy (1926) and the title page and dust jacket for Shadows on the Rock (1931). Adler approached Cather
in 1929 about contributing to a planned series in the Colophon on “Getting into Print”; her essay “My First Novels
(there were two)” finally appeared in 1931. In 1940, Adler established the
Department of Graphic Arts at Princeton University, where he remained until
1952. He then moved to Puerto Rico to establish La Casa del Libro, with
which he was associated until his death.
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
New York Times
Time
April Twilights and Other Poems (1923) by Willa Cather
New York Times Book Review
