Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 |
NORTHEAST HARBOR2
MAINE June 22nd Dear Alfred1—
In the midst of unpacking, I must write you a word of congratulation, with a hotel pen, but from the heart. When I last saw you, I had not read Kessel5's book6, or Browns7. Those two books would make a new publisher's reputation—over night! Kessel's book will go on and on—if people find out what it is about8. The title is not very informing. That thin little book has more splendor in it - - - and the execution couldn't be better. Only a great theme and a great feeling can make any writer do as well as that.
Harry Brown9 is certainly some writer. He makes "The Red Badge of Courage"10 look mighty pale—which it always was. This fellow has a very neat technique, entirely effective and gratifying, and a brain behind it.
ASTICOU INNNORTHEAST HARBOR
MAINE
He doesn't merely report and "describe" vividly. What he sees sometimes, not often
gives him makes him take a few fences and
come out with something that is an idea, purely personal and having little
to do with the "scene." When he does that its
always
interesting! And is neither an
"observation" nor a "reflection." I don't know just what to call it but it is alive, and I like it.
This scrawl will hardly be worth your har trouble to read, it, as I have neither a proper pen or writing
table. But I am very happy that you have these two books and I want to tell
you so.
Is there any way in which I could help you get Kessel's book to people?
From Willa Cather ASTICOU INN NORTHEAST HARBOR2 MAINE Mr. Alfred A. Knopf1 501 Madison Avenue New York3 N. Y. NORTHEAST HARBOR, MAINE2 JUN 23 1944 630 PM PersonalInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2728.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2728
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, handwritten on recto of each leaf only. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- June 22 [1944]
- Place letter was written
- Northeast Harbor, Maine, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Cather-Knopf Correspondence, The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
Asticou Inn (Northeast Harbor, ME): Originally built in 1883 by A. C. Savage, the Asticou Inn was destroyed by a fire in 1899, but rebuilt by 1901. When the war and health considerations made travel to Grand Manan impossible, Willa Cather and Edith Lewis stayed at the Asticou in the 1940s, occupying a small cottage on the grounds of the inn.
Kessel's novel is about the French Resistance movement during World War II.
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.
Kessel, Joseph (1898-1979). French aviator, author, and journalist.
Born in Argentina, at age ten Joseph Kessel emigrated with his
family to Paris, France. He served as a pilot in both World Wars I and II;
his first book, The Crew (1923), is about his World
War I experiences. He wrote over fifty novels, which were popular in France,
and also worked as a journalist for Le Figaro, France-Soir, and other periodicals. From 1939 to 1940
he served as a war correspondent and then as an aide to General Charles de
Gaulle during WWII. Willa Cather so greatly admired Kessel’s novel about the
French Resistance, Army of Shadows (1944), published
in French in Algiers in 1943 as L’arme e des ombres
and published in translation in the U.S. by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., that she
granted rare permission to use her name in promoting the book.
Brown, Harry (1917-1986). American author, poet, and screenwriter. Born in Portland, ME, Harry Brown attended Harvard University and then worked for Time magazine and the New Yorker. During WWII, the Army assigned him to work for the Army magazine Yank. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., published his best-selling WWII novel, A Walk in the Sun (1944), and Cather praised Brown to Alfred Knopf as “certainly some writer” (#2347). Brown also won an Oscar for his screenplay for A Place in the Sun (1951).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Army of Shadows (1944) by Joseph Kessel
A Walk in the Sun (1944) by Harry Brown
The Red Badge of Courage (1895) by Stephen Crane
