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 |
The Grosvenor
35 FIFTH AVENUE
New York2 Ans'd by _____
NOV 10 1932
Filed by _____ Wednesday Dear Alfred1;
I have been enjoying the gorgeous flowers you sent me here in my old rooms3. I brought ‘em down with me in the cab on Monday. For though all my old furniture is now at 570 Park avenue4, my new furniture won’t be there for a week, at least, and I won’t be living there for ten days or two weeks from now. I go up every morning and direct the maid and
Italian cabinetmaker, and then I come back to this hotel and spend the ret rest of the day recuperating. You can reach me by
telephone here any day between four and five any day
after Thursday. I have no telephone in the new apartment as yet, but I will have
before I begin to live there.
With my warmest thanks for your thoughtfulness and good wishes on my moving day,
Yours Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2658.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2658
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- [November 9, 1932]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
November 9, 1932 was the Wednesday preceding November 10, 1932, when this letter was stamped as received.
- 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
Grosvenor Hotel (New York City): When Cather and Edith Lewis lost their 5 Bank Street apartment in 1927, they moved into the Grosvenor Hotel, where they continued to live until 1932. The hotel was located at 35 Fifth Avenue in the Manhattan borough of New York City.
570 Park Avenue (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis from December 11, 1932, until her death, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, near Central Park. They had apartment 7D. Lewis continued to live there until her own death.
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
