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 |
NORTHEAST HARBOR
MAINE K 8/30 August 28, 1946 Mr. Alfred Knopf1 501 Madison Avenue New York City3
My dear Alfred,
I felt very sure that your opinion4 of the Viking Portables5 would agree with mine.
Now, very unwillingly, I must take up a bothersome little matter with you. Several weeks ago Mrs. Howard Mansfield6 of 535 Park Avenue, New York, ordered from Brentano's7 a copy of A Lost Lady8. When the book reached her here2 at the Asticou Inn9, she saw that it was a defective copy and handed it over to me. I am sending it to you under letter post. The text ends at page 156, then skips eight blank pages, begins again at 165 omitting the text for eight pages in the middle of a rather important story told by the Lost Lady herself. Of course I cannot tell how many of this particular printing of the book may be similarly defective but I do think that the entire printing10 should be destroyed and that the Plympton Press11 should be a little more careful. It is surely no credit to them to turn out work like this.
Sincerely yours, Willa Cather 1946 AUG 30 PM 2:01Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2746.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2746
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only with date stamp on verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alfred A. Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- August 28, 1946
- 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
Knopf's 21 August 1946 letter indicates he has been approached about creating a "Portable Willa Cather" for Viking and that he is against it and presumes Cather will be too.
Alexander Woollcott inauguarated the Viking Portable series in 1943. The first volume, As You Were, was a compilation of soldiers' writings, but the second volume presented a selection of John Steinbeck's writings, and the series became known for such author compilations.
A popular American bookstore with numerous locations in the US, Brentano's was founded as an independent bookstore in 1853 at its flagship location at the Rockefeller Center on Fifth Avenue in New York City. By the 1940s there were four locations in New York City, and at least ten total in the US.
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.
Knopf responded on 30 August 1946 that the copy was a common example of an imperfect binding, something that doesn't usually make it to customers before it is returned for credit at the bindery. It did not indicate a problem with the whole printing.
The Plimpton Press, located in Norwood, MA, printed and bound Death Comes for the Archbishop and other Cather titles published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
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.
Mansfield, Helen Coolidge Todd (1861-1957) (“Nellie”). American suffragette. Born in Boston, MA, to Rueben J. Todd and Hannah Coolidge Todd, Helen Todd was educated in New York City and in Europe. In 1881 she married James Chesbro Tuttle; they had two children, George and Margaret. After James died, Helen married Howard Mansfield, a prominent lawyer and art collector. In 1903, Helen founded the Third St. Music School Settlement and was president of the National Association of Music School Societies. She was also president of Equal Woman Suffrage Associations of New York State and the vice chairman of the New York State Suffrage Party’s Empire State Committee. Willa Cather met Helen Mansfield while staying at the Asticou Inn in 1946.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
A Lost Lady (1923) by Willa Cather
