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 |
SEP 2 1931
Filed by ________ Sunday Dear Alfred1;
I think it would be a good thing to use the quotation3 you make from Fanny Butcher4's review5, in any way that seems to you proper and effective.
Technically, Mr. Keppel6 is right7; but the color prints came along so soon after the year 1700 struck, that I thought I might juggle with time, just as I did with topography in placing the king's wharehouses on the St. Lawrence, though they were really on the St. Charles until about 1725. (Queer that nobody has come up with that.)
The corrections in usage suggested in your letter I think you had better have made. Please ask Mr. Preston8 to make sure about the accent in Liege9; I thought it grave. I attach the list of corrections to be made, from your letter.
You will hear from me later in the week about two new stories10 which I want you to read as a favor to me.
Faithfully yours Willa CatherPage 208, second paragraph, first line: wracked for racked.
Page 271, second paragraph, third line: Lieège for Lieége)
Page 49, fourth line from end, last word: unkept-- should it not be unkempt?
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2634.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2634
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only with enclosed list attached to the letter with a pin.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- [August 30, 1931]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The letter was stamped as receved September 2, 1931, and August 30, 1931, was the preceding Sunday.
- Accompanying this letter
-
Includes enclosed list of corrections (taken from a previous letter from Knopf), attached to the letter with a pin.
- 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
On 25 August 1931, Knopf suggested that this quotation from Butcher's review be used on the jacket: "...a book which is so authentically the work of genius, so immediately perceptible as a masterpiece, as emotionally beautiful in style as to be great even to the untutored reader--to the trained critic, superb. Such a book is Willa Cather's latest novel, SHADOWS ON THE ROCK."
On 23 August 1931, Alfred Knopf wrote that Frederick Keppel had written him objecting to "references to colour prints of pastoral scenes" in Shadows on the Rock because "Unless I am greatly mistaken, no prints, pastoral or otherwise, were printed in colour in France before the eighteenth century."
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.
Bokum, Frances Amanda Butcher (1888-1987) (“Fanny”).
American newspaper critic and bookstore owner. Born in Fredonia,
KS, Butcher moved to Chicago, IL, as a child. She received an A.A. from
Lewis Institute in 1908 and a BA from the University of Chicago in 1910. In
1911, Floyd Dell of the Chicago Evening Post assigned
her to review Alexander’s Bridge (1912). Cather wrote
the anonymous reviewer care of the Post, beginning
their correspondence and friendship. From 1913 until her retirement in 1963,
Butcher wrote for the Chicago Tribune, becoming
literary editor in 1922. She ran Fanny Butcher Books in Chicago from 1919
until 1927, when she sold it to Doubleday. Cather frequently saw Butcher
when she changed trains in Chicago and closely followed Butcher’s reviews of
her works, often writing to her about them. She also relied on Butcher’s
knowledge of the book business and particularly book distribution in the
Midwest. Their extant correspondence begins in 1920, although in her memoir
Many Lives—One Love (1972), Butcher
paraphrases earlier letters. Butcher married Richard Drummond Bokum in 1935.
Keppel, Frederick Paul (1875-1943) (“Fred”). American philanthropist
and educator. Born on Staten Island, NY, Frederick Keppel
graduated from Columbia University in 1898. After working in publishing, he
returned to Columbia, occupying a string of administrative positions from
1910 to 1918. After serving as Newton D. Baker’s Third Assistant Secretary
of War, commissioner from the United States to the International Chamber of
Commerce, and secretary to the Greater New York Planning Board, he was
elected president of the Carnegie Corporation. At the Carnegie, he
instituted a travel grants program and supported Gunnar Myrdal’s famous race
study, American Dilemma (1944). Cather called Keppel
a “very charming person” (#1979), but she declined invitations from him to
speak.
Preston, Raymond Abner (1892-1956). Chief copy editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Raymond Preston earned a BA from Brown University (1914) and an MA from Harvard University (1915), and then taught English at Brown and at Washington and Jefferson College. After serving in World War I, he became chief copy editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., working in that capacity until his death. Knopf published his edition of William Godwin’s An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice in 1926, and he was involved in copy editing Willa Cather’s Shadows on the Rock (1931), Obscure Destinies (1932), and Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940).
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
"Willa Cather Writes a Novel of Old Quebec," Chicago Daily Tribune (August 15, 1931) by Fanny Butcher
"Old Mrs. Harris," Obscure Destinies (1932) by Willa Cather
"Two Friends," Obscure Destinies (1932) by Willa Cather
