Mellen, Mary Virginia Auld (1906-1982) (“Virginia,” “M.V.”). Cather's niece. Born in Red Cloud, NE, to Jessica Cather Auld and James William Auld, Mary Virginia graduated from Red Cloud High School in 1924 and then spent a year at Dana Hall in Wellesley, MA, to qualify for admission to Smith College in Northampton, MA. In 1929 she received an A.B. in psychology from Smith and then moved to New York City, where she found work at Lord & Taylor before telling her aunt of her arrival. In 1930, probably with Willa Cather's help, she secured a position in the Circulation Department of the New York Public Library. In 1931, she entered the library's internal training school and in 1932 was assigned to the Tremont branch library in the Bronx. After Mary Virginia’s parents divorced in 1933 Cather took a quasi-parental role. She paid for vacations and when, in 1935, Mary Virginia married Richard (Dick) Mellen, a graduate of Harvard Medical School and roommate of her brother William Thomas Auld at Amherst College, she supervised wedding arrangements. After Dick was commissioned as a doctor in the Air Force, Mary Virginia—much to Cather’s regret—accompanied him to Chattanooga, TN, where he was assigned. In Cather's will, Mary Virginia was designated a beneficiary of the literary estate.

Smith, Bernard (1907-1999). American publisher, critic, and film producer. Bernard Smith was born in New York City, the first of two children born to Abraham Shumyatsky and Esther Smith. Smith attended the City of New York University and in 1928 began working for Alfred Knopf. He eventually became editor-in-chief at Knopf and during his time there he published the works of Langston Hughes, B. Traven, and Raymond Chandler. Smith also worked in the film industry, serving as a producer on movies such as Elmer Gantry (1960) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964), and as a literary critic, publishing Forces in American Criticism: A Study in the History of American Literary Thought in 1939 and The Democratic Spirit: A Collection of American Writings from the Earliest Times to the Present Day in 1941. Cather and Smith knew one another through their shared connections to Knopf.

Stimson, George Mirick (1882-1950). Printer employed at Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Born in Ponta Delgada in the Azores to an American father and an English mother, by 1916 George Stimson was working as a printer at the Riverside Press of the Houghton Mifflin Co. In the late 1920s, he worked in the production department of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and Willa Cather corresponded with him about design and printing issues. By 1942 he had left Knopf for the Macmillan Co.

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.