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 |
Mercy upon us! We'll have to ask Mr. Dwiggins3 to change this splendid title page4. The columnists in the New York5 dailies would have too much room for wit—I'm afraid I'd wince under it. This is one case when the title must come before the author's name, not after. I'm enclosing a letter6 to Dwiggins himself which you must read (if you can!) and then rush off to him. It explains why we must change the title page. I am rushing this off to catch the mail boat, as there won't be another mail out for three days, and I must take this scrawl to the post office myself—no postmen here2, you know!
I am glad you're back, my dear, but I keep wishing your holiday could have been longer.
In wildest haste Yours W. S. C. RECEIVEDAUG-3 1936 AM
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let3083.xml
- Letter identifier
- 3083
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Originally included letter #2843 as an enclosure.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Blanche Wolf Knopf 1
- Date letter was written
- July 31 [1936]
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Irving Kolodin Papers, 1844-1986 (JPB 06-40), New York Public Library, Library for the Performing Arts, Music Division, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
See #2843, explaining why the order of elements on the title page should be changed from Willa Cather/Not Under Forty to Not Under Forty/by Willa Cather.
Person Annotations
Knopf, Blanche Wolf (1894-1966). Vice President of New York
publisher Alfred Knopf, Inc. Blanche Wolf founded Alfred Knopf,
Inc., in 1915 with her future husband Alfred Knopf. They married in 1916 and
their son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Active in the business
throughout her life, Blanche Knopf recruited a number of prominent European
and Latin American writers to the Knopf list (in translation) by traveling
to meet them. In recognition of her work with writers such as Jean-Paul
Sartre and Albert Camus, she was inducted into the French Legion of Honor in
1949. She became president of Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1957 when her husband
became chairman. Through her work in the publishing house she also promoted
writers of the Harlem Renaissance such as Langston Hughes. Cather’s letters
to Knopf focus primarily on business but the two also became friends.
Dwiggins, William Addison (1880-1956) (“W.A.”). Book and type designer. Born in Massachusetts, W. A. Dwiggins began his career as a commercial artist in Chicago, IL, where he worked with designer Frederick Goudy. After returning to Massachusetts, he published an attack on contemporary book design, An Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books (1919), which brought him to the attention of Alfred A. Knopf. Knopf had Dwiggins design several of Willa Cather’s books, including My Mortal Enemy (1926), which Dwiggins also illustrated, Lucy Gayheart (1935), and Not Under Forty (1936). Cather liked his work, recommending to Houghton Mifflin that he design the Autograph Edition of her works.
Place Annotations
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
Work Annotations
Not Under Forty (1936) by Willa Cather
