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 |
Here is Greenslet’s3 report4 on how I got into J. Cape’s5 hands. It’s not very full or enlightening. Why should Cape want to photograph6 the H. & M. edition when he could re-set from a copy of the printed book7?
Still happily at work, and I think it is awfully kind of you to take an interest in helping me to try to escape from Cape.
Very gratefully W. S. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2696.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2696
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- [November 23, 1937]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
November 23, 1937 is the Tuesday between Greenslet's November 22, 1937 letter referenced here and Knopf's response to this letter, dated November 24, 1937.
- 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
Greenslet's letter of 22 November 1937 recounts a string of correspondence in 1932 that led to Jonathan Cape acquiring British rights and publishing The Song of the Lark in a Travellers' Library edition.
Knopf's reply on 24 November 1937 explained that photographing was less expensive than resetting the type.
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.
Greenslet, Ferris (1875-1959). American editor and writer.
Born in Glens Falls, NY, Ferris Greenslet earned a BA (1897) from
Wesleyan University and a PhD (1900) from Columbia University. He served as
associate editor at the Atlantic Monthly from 1902 to
1907, and married Ella Stoothoff Hulst in 1903; they had two children,
Marguerite (born 1904) and George (born 1906). As an author he specialized
in biography. He became literary editor at Houghton Mifflin, the Boston
publisher of the Atlantic, c. 1908 and was socially
and professionally acquainted with Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett,
who may have introduced him to Cather. He evidently solicited Cather to
submit Alexander’s Bridge (1912), her first published
novel, to Houghton Mifflin. In 1910, when Greenslet became editor in chief
of the trade department, Roger Scaife divided his shares as a director of
the company with him, and the two presented themselves to authors as
partners, with Scaife handling book advertising and format and Greenslet
negotiating contracts and supervising editing; when Greenslet was absent
from the office, Scaife handled correspondence with Cather. Greenslet became
a director of Houghton Mifflin in 1919 and manager of the trade department
in 1933. Cather left Houghton Mifflin as a publisher for Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc., because she became dissatisfied with the production and advertising of
her books. However, she remained on cordial terms with Greenslet and
undertook several projects for him after her departure. Her extant letters
to him constitute one of the largest groups to a single correspondent.
Cape, Herbert Jonathan (1879-1960) (“Jonathan”). British publisher. Born in London, England, Cape began his career in his early teens as errand boy at Hatchard’s bookstore. He worked for the London branch of Harper’s as clerk and salesman, and then at publisher Gerald Duckworth’s company, rising to manager by 1911. In 1920, he and George Wren Howard founded the publishing company Jonathan Cape, which was known for the high quality of their design and fine list of authors, including some Americans. Cape bought the rights to Cather’s The Song of the Lark (1915) from the first British publisher John Murray and brought out a pocket edition in 1932. Cather was unhappy at the reduced royalties and transferred the rights to Cassell, which had become her British publisher.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
The Song of the Lark (1915) by Willa Cather
