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 |
Burnett
10/31/45 No Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Borzoi
Books
501 Madison Ave., N. Y. 22 AS A WAR MEASURE WE USE THIS POSTCARD FOR BRIEF MESSAGES THIS SIDE OF CARD IS FOR ADDRESS 1945 OCT 31 AM 9:45 Alfred A. Knopf, Esq.1 501 Madison Avenue New York 22, New York2 NEW YORK, N. Y.2 OCT 30 1945 230 PM
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2739.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2739
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten and handwritten on recto and typewritten on verso of postcard.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- [October 30, 1945]
- 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
As indicated by the "No" written by a Knopf staff member, Burnett did not include "Scandal" in an anthology. It is unclear which book Burnett wrote about. Knopf's 29 October 1945 letter indicates Cather gave Burnett permission to reprint "Paul's Case" in the "umpteenth anthology which he is editing," but he responded with a request for "Death in the Desert" instead.
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.
Burnett, Whitney (1899-1973) (“Whit”). American writer, teacher, and anthologist. Burnett, born in Salt Lake City, UT, became a journalist and foreign correspondent. In 1931 he and his first wife, Martha Foley, founded Story magazine, which published the first work of many later-famous writers. He also wrote The Maker of Signs (1934), a collection of his own short stories, and The Literary Life and to Hell with It (1939), a memoir, and taught fiction writing at Columbia University in the 1930s and 1940s, where J.D. Salinger was his student. Burnett wrote Cather about his anthology, This Is My Best (1942), for which authors themselves were to choose their best story. She was not very receptive, but she adopted Alfred Knopf’s suggestion that she choose “Neighbour Rosicky” (1930). However, she apparently ignored Burnett’s request to choose another story for a later edition.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"A Death In The Desert," Scribner's Magazine (January 1903) by Willa Cather
"Scandal," Century Magazine (August 1919) by Willa Cather
