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 |
Thank you3 so much for Mr. Toye4’s book5. I found everything he has to say interesting, even when I cannot agree with him.
I wish "Lucy"6
were
a little longer7! I have only a Tauchnitz copy8 of “A Lost Lady9” here; but
unless that edition is cut, “Lucy” runs considerably longer10. She won’t, at least, be a diminished “Lost Lady.”
The weather continues fine up here2 and I have been gloriously idle ever since I came. I am still hopeful that I may write an article about11 “Joseph and His Brothers"12 one of these days.
With love to you and Blanche13, Willa Cather RECEIVEDAUG 13 1934 AM
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2673.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2673
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- August 8 [1934]
- 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 31 July 1934 Knopf sent Cather a second-hand copy of The Well-Tempered Musician he had located in Philadelphia.
On 31 July 1934 Knopf wrote that the book trade might object to the page length of Lucy Gayheart set in the type she preferred, but as it would retail at $2 rather than $2.50, there was no cause for worry.
The Tauchnitz Edition Collection of British and American Authors produced inexpensive paperback editions in English sold only in Europe. The Tauchnitz A Lost Lady was published in 1927.
On 20 July 1934, Knopf had suggested using the same type as used for A Lost Lady (1923) to swell the page count of Lucy Gayheart.
Cather's essay "The Birth of Personality: An Appreciation of Thomas Mann's Trilogy" appeared in the 6 June 1936 Saturday Review of Literature and was collected as "Joseph and His Brothers" in Not Under Forty (1936). Knopf published Mann in translation in the U.S.
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.
Toye, John Francis (1883-1964) (“Francis”). British writer and music critic. Born in Winchester, Hampshire, England, Francis Toye was educated at Winchester College, where his father taught, and Cambridge University; he later studied singing and music composition. In 1908 he became the music critic for Vanity Fair, then, after service in World War I, for the Daily Express and the Morning Post. His biography of Verdi (1931) became the standard work in English; he also wrote a biography of Rossini (1934), published in the U.S. by Knopf, which Cather may have read. In 1939 Toye became director of the British Institute in Florence, Italy, resuming the position after World War II; he remained in Florence after his retirement in 1958.
Knopf, Blanche Wolf (1894-1966). Vice President of New York
publisher Alfred Knopf, Inc. Blanche Wolf founded Alfred Knopf,
Inc., in 1915 with her future husband Alfred Knopf. They married in 1916 and
their son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Active in the business
throughout her life, Blanche Knopf recruited a number of prominent European
and Latin American writers to the Knopf list (in translation) by traveling
to meet them. In recognition of her work with writers such as Jean-Paul
Sartre and Albert Camus, she was inducted into the French Legion of Honor in
1949. She became president of Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1957 when her husband
became chairman. Through her work in the publishing house she also promoted
writers of the Harlem Renaissance such as Langston Hughes. Cather’s letters
to Knopf focus primarily on business but the two also became friends.
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
The Well-Tempered Musician: A Musical Point of View (1925) by Francis Toye
Lucy Gayheart (1935) by Willa Cather
A Lost Lady (1923) by Willa Cather
Joseph and His Brothers (1933 to 1944) by Thomas Mann
