A Calendar of the Letters of Willa Cather


Book Description

An infamous clause in Willa Cather's will, forbidding publication of her letters and other papers, has long caused consternation among Cather scholars. For Cather, a complex and private person who seldom made revelatory public pronouncements, personal letters provide-or would provide-an especially valuable key to understanding. But because of the terms of her will, that key is not readily available. Cather's letters will not come into public domain until the year 2017. Until then, even quotation, let alone publication in full, is prohibited. Janis P. Stout has gathered over eighteen hundred of Cather's letters--all the letters currently known to be available--and provides a brief summary of each, as well as a biographical directory identifying correspondents and a multisection index of the widely scattered letters organized by location, by correspondent, and by names and titles mentioned. This book will be an essential resource for Cather scholars.




The Selected Letters of Willa Cather


Book Description

Time Magazine's 10 Top Nonfiction Books of the Year • Willa Cather’s letters—withheld from publication for more than six decades—are finally available to the public in this fascinating selection. The hundreds collected here range from witty reports of life as a teenager in Red Cloud in the 1880s through her college years at the University of Nebraska, her time as a journalist in Pittsburgh and New York, and her growing eminence as a novelist. They describe her many travels and record her last years, when the loss of loved ones and the disasters of World War II brought her near to despair. Above all, they reveal her passionate interest in people, literature, and the arts. The voice is one we recognize from her fiction: confident, elegant, detailed, openhearted, concerned with profound ideas, but also at times sentimental, sarcastic, and funny. A deep pleasure to read, this volume reveals the intimate joys and sorrows of one of America’s most admired writers.




Willa Cather Letters


Book Description

The two letters are unrelated. The first, a business letter, is addressed to an unidentified "Mr. Towne"; Cather turns down an apparent offer on his part to publish one of her works. The second letter, written much later, is a personal letter to Brother Emil Mohr, CSC, where Cather expresses her disenchantment with the current state of the world as well as her love of Latin. Entries for both letters can be found in A Calendar of the Letters of Willa Cather, edited by Janis P. Stout (Lincoln and London: U. of Nebraska Press, 2002).




Willa Cather in Person


Book Description

Cather, the Nebraska-born novelist, describes her childhood, her career as a writer, and the influences on her work




My Ántonia


Book Description

In the late 19th century, orphaned Jim Burden is sent to the wilderness in Nebraska to live with his grandparents. He arrives at the same time as the Shimerda family, including the eldest daughter Ántonia, who becomes his closest neighbors. Life in the American West is tough, especially for the impoverished Shimerda family, and pioneers must struggle for survival. A friendship blossoms between Jim and Ántonia as they explore nature and have adventures together, a friendship that will last a lifetime. My Ántonia became an immediate success when first published and is today considered Willa Cather's first masterpiece. It is praised for its depiction of the American West and its ability to highlight the aspirations of ordinary, poor people in a time when it was customary to write about the elite. WILLA CATHER [1873-1947] was an American author. After studying at the University of Nebraska, she worked as a teacher and journalist. Cather's novels often focus on settlers in the USA with a particular emphasis on female pioneers. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the novel One of Ours, and in 1943, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.




The Selected Letters of Willa Cather


Book Description

Time Magazine's 10 Top Nonfiction Books of the Year • Willa Cather’s letters—withheld from publication for more than six decades—are finally available to the public in this fascinating selection. The hundreds collected here range from witty reports of life as a teenager in Red Cloud in the 1880s through her college years at the University of Nebraska, her time as a journalist in Pittsburgh and New York, and her growing eminence as a novelist. They describe her many travels and record her last years, when the loss of loved ones and the disasters of World War II brought her near to despair. Above all, they reveal her passionate interest in people, literature, and the arts. The voice is one we recognize from her fiction: confident, elegant, detailed, openhearted, concerned with profound ideas, but also at times sentimental, sarcastic, and funny. A deep pleasure to read, this volume reveals the intimate joys and sorrows of one of America’s most admired writers.




The Burglar’s Christmas


Book Description

First published in 1896, The Burglar’s Christmas is a short story by the great American writer Willa Cather. Set in Chicago on a cold Christmas Eve, the down-and-out Crawford learns the value of forgiveness. 'The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us.' — Rebecca West 'Her voice, laconical and richly sensuous, sings out with a note of unequivocal love for the people she is setting down on the page.' — Marina Warner




The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather


Book Description

The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather offers thirteen original essays by leading scholars of a major American modernist novelist. Willa Cather's luminous prose is 'easy' to read yet surprisingly difficult to understand. The essays collected here are theoretically informed but accessibly written and cover the full range of Cather's career, including most of her twelve novels and several of her short stories. The essays situate Cather's work in a broad range of critical, cultural, and literary contexts, and the introduction explores current trends in Cather scholarship as well as the author's place in contemporary culture. With a detailed chronology and a guide to further reading, the volume offers students and teachers a fresh and thorough sense of the author of My Ántonia, The Professor's House, and Death Comes for the Archbishop.




O Pioneers!


Book Description

When the young Swedish-descended Alexandra Bergson inherits her father's farm in Nebraska, she must transform the land from a wind-swept prairie landscape into a thriving enterprise. She dedicates herself completely to the land—at the cost of great sacrifices. O Pioneers! [1913] is Willa Cather's great masterpiece about American pioneers, where the land is as important a character as the people who cultivate it. WILLA CATHER [1873-1947] was an American author. After studying at the University of Nebraska, she worked as a teacher and journalist. Cather's novels often focus on settlers in the USA with a particular emphasis on female pioneers. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the novel One of Ours, and in 1943, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.




Willa Cather at the Modernist Crux


Book Description

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Introduction: Willa Cather at the Modernist Crux -- Prologue: Gifts from the Museum: Catherian Epiphanies in Context -- Part 1. Beginnings -- 1. The Compatibility of Art and Religion for Willa Cather: From the Beginning -- 2. Thea in Wonderland: Willa Cather's Revision of the Alice Novels and the Gender Codes of the Western Frontier -- 3. Ántonia and Hiawatha: Spectacles of the Nation -- Part 2. Presences -- 4. Willa Cather, Howard Pyle, and "The Precious Message of Romance"--5. "Then a Great Man in American Art": Willa Cather's Frederic Remington -- 6. Willa Cather, Ernest L. Blumenschein, and "The Painting of Tomorrow"--7. From The Song of the Lark to Lucy Gayheart, and Die Walküre to Die Winterreise -- 8. The Trafficking of Mrs. Forrester: Prostitution and Willa Cather's A Lost Lady -- 9. The Outlandish Hands of Fred Demmler: Pittsburgh Prototypes in The Professor's House -- 10. Translating the Southwest: The 1940 French Edition of Death Comes for the Archbishop -- Part 3. Articulation: The Song of the Lark -- 11. Elements of Modernism in The Song of the Lark -- 12. "The Earliest Sources of Gladness": Reading the Deep Map of Cather's Southwest -- 13. Re(con)ceiving Experience: Cognitive Science and Creativity in The Song of the Lark -- 14. Women and Vessels in The Song of the Lark and Shadows on the Rock -- Epilogue: The Difference That Letters Make: A Meditation on The Selected Letters of Willa Cather -- Contributors -- Index