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 |
Mr. Knopf3 has shown me your letter of March 30th and I am delighted to learn that you are going to be able to add THE SONG OF THE LARK4 to your list. This meets with my full approval, it being understood, of course, that you will not continue a cheap edition of this book, i.e., I don’t want it to be published by you at less than seven shillings six pence and that you will not reprint the text which Cape5 used in the Traveller’s Library6. I have made heavy revisions7 and Mr. Greenslet8 will be sending you shortly the revised text which I want you to follow. And please include in your edition of THE SONG OF THE LARK the special preface which I wrote for the Traveller’s Library edition.
I would be glad if you would draw up your usual agreement for this book and send it to me in Mr. Knopf’s care. Needless to say, I don’t expect the terms that you would offer for a new novel.
Yours sincerely, Willa Cather Cassell & Company, Ltd. Attention: Desmond Flower, Esq. La Belle Sauvage London9, E. C. 4 bInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2699.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2699
- Contents
- Document is carbon copy of one leaf, typewritten on recto only. The letter was prepared in Knopf's office for Cather's signature (see #2700).
- Person to whom letter was written
- Desmond Flower1
- Date letter was written
- April 14, 1938
- 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
The Travellers' Library was a series of small-format books, published by Jonathan Cape in England, designed for the "pocket" or "small house" and featuring a wide variety of texts.
Cather significantly cut and revised the text of The Song of the Lark for the 1937 Autograph Edition.
Person Annotations
Flower, Desmond. (1907-1997). British publisher, book-collector, and writer. Born in London, England, Flower attended Cambridge University. In 1930 he began working at Cassell Publishing, which his father, Sir Newman Flower, had purchased. There he edited the works of Ernest Dowson, produced several anthologies, and wrote English Poetical Autographs (1938). A notable collector of antiquarian books, Flower founded Book Collector’s Quarterly with A.J.A. Simmons and organized several rare book exhibitions, including the 1947 exhibition “A Thousand Years of French Books.” Flower served in WWII with distinction and afterwards helped to rebuild Cassell Publishing. Cather corresponded with Flower about the English edition of Obscure Destinies (1932) and the second English edition of The Song of the Lark (1938).
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.
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.
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.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
The Song of the Lark (1915) by Willa Cather
