Best Selling Books by Willa Cather

Of Ántonia, the passionate and majestic central character in Willa Cather’s greatest novel, the narrator, Jim Burden, says that she left “images in the mind that did not fade–that grew stronger with time.” The same is true of the book in which Cather enshrines her heroine. On one level, My Ántonia is a straight forward narrative, written in limpid prose of uncanny descriptive accuracy, about the struggles endured by a family of immigrant pioneers and the small community that surrounds them on the unsettled Nebraska plains. On another, it is a novel that represents a perfect marriage of form and feeling. In its magnificent tableaux of human beings caught in the toils of an abundant and overpowering natural world, and in the quiet, understated sympathy it displays for life of every sort, My Ántonia is a novel that effortlessly encompasses history and wilderness and the destiny of the individual–even as it lovingly and unsentimentally portrays a woman whose robust spirit and enduring warmth make her emblematic of what Cather most admired in the American people.

"The story of the eponymous Lucy Gayheart, a spirited young girl from Haverford, Nebraska, who leaves home to pursue a career in music"--

My Ántonia Willa Cather - My Ántonia evokes the Nebraska prairie life of Willa Cathers childhood, and commemorates the spirit and courage of immigrant pioneers in America. One of Cathers earliest novels, written in 1918, it is the story of Ántonia Shimerda, who arrives on the Nebraska frontier as part of a family of Bohemian emigrants. Her story is told through the eyes of Jim Burden, a neighbor who will befriend Ántonia, teach her English, and follow the remarkable story of her life. Working in the fields of waving grass and tall corn that dot the Great Plains, Ántonia forges the durable spirit that will carry her through the challenges she faces when she moves to the city. But only when she returns to the prairie does she recover her strength and regain a sense of purpose in life. In the quiet, probing depth of Willa Cathers art, Ántonias story becomes a mobbing elegy to those whose persistence and strength helped build the American frontier. Willa Cather was a great artist. Truman Capote No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as My Ántonia. H. L. Mencken The time will come when Willa Cather will be ranked above Hemingway. Leon Edel

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. My Antonia is Willa Cather’s masterpiece about 19th-century Nebraskan pioneers.

Willa Cather said that O Pioneers! was her first authentic novel, "the first time I walked off on my own feet--everything before was half real and half an imitation of writers whom I admired." Cather''s novel of life on the Nebraska frontier established her reputation as a writer of great note and marked a significant turning point in her artistic development. No longer would she let literary convention guide the form of her writing; the materials themselves would dictate the structure. Cather''s O Pioneers! is the sentimental and somewhat controversial story of the Bergsons, a family of Swedish pioneers that settles for life on the American prairie. While Alexandra, the family matriarch, is able to turn the family farm into a financial success, her brother Emil must grapple with the solace and tragedy of forbidden love. A novel surprisingly ahead of its time, this protofeminist work touches on a wide range of enduring themes, including love, marriage, temptation, and isolation.

Claude has an intuitive faith in something splendid and feels at odds with his contemporaries. The war offers him the opportunity to forget his farm and his marriage of compromise; he enlists and discovers that he has lacked. But while war demands altruism, its essence is destructive

First published in 1923, "A Lost Lady" is one of Willa Cather''s classic novels about life on the Great Plains. This edition includes a historical essay which describes the origin, writing and reception of the novel.

My Ántonia is a novel published in 1918 by American writer Willa Cather, considered one of her best works. The novel tells the stories of an orphaned boy from Virginia, Jim Burden, and the elder daughter in a family of Bohemian immigrants, Ántonia Shimerda, who are each brought to be pioneers in Nebraska towards the end of the 19th century, as children. Both the pioneers who first break the prairie sod for farming, as well as of the harsh but fertile land itself, feature in this American novel. The first year in the very new place leaves strong impressions in both children, affecting them lifelong.

My Antonia is a novel by an American writer Willa Cather. It is the final book of the "prairie trilogy" of novels, preceded by O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark. The novel tells the stories of an orphaned boy from Virginia, Jim Burden, and Antonia Shimerda, the daughter of Bohemian immigrants. They are both became pioneers and settled in Nebraska in the end of the 19th century. The first year in the very new place leaves strong impressions in both children, affecting them lifelong. The narrator and the main character of the novel My Antonia, Jim grows up in Black Hawk, Nebraska from age 10 Eventually, he becomes a successful lawyer and moves to New York City.

A study in emotional dislocation and renewal -- Professor Godfrey St. Peter, a man in his 50''s, has achieved what would seem to be remarkable success. When called on to move to a more comfortable home, something in him rebels. On the eve of his move to a new, more desirable residence, Professor Godfrey St Peter finds himself in the shabby study of his former home. Surrounded by the comforting, familiar sights of his past, he surveys his life and the people he has loved -- his wife Lillian, his daughters, and Tom Outland, his most outstanding student and once, his son-in-law to be. Enigmatic and courageous -- and a tragic victim of the Great War -- Tom has remained a source of inspiration to the professor. But he has also left behind him a troubling legacy which has brought betrayal and fracture to the women he loves most.

A portrait of an enduring friendship, from one of America’s most celebrated novelists. ‘Quite simply a masterpiece’ Daily Telegraph Two priests are despatched from Rome to New Mexico to reinvigorate Catholicism among the locals, knowing little of the challenges that await them. Over almost four decades they encounter a rich variety of people, from rebellious Mexican priests to steadfast Native Americans uninterested in changing their longstanding customs. ‘Its whole effect works slowly and mysteriously ... a major, and rare, artistic achievement’ AS Byatt

Willa Cather’s third novel, The Song of the Lark, depicts the growth of an artist, singer Thea Kronborg. In creating Thea’s character, Cather was inspired by the Swedish-born immigrant and renowned Wagnerian soprano Olive Fremstad, although Thea’s early life also has much in common with Cather’s own. Set from 1885 to 1909, the novel traces Thea’s long journey from her fictional hometown of Moonstone, Colorado, to her source of inspiration in the Southwest, and to New York and the Metropolitan Opera House. As she makes her own way in the world from an unlikely background, Thea distills all her experiences and relationships into the power and passion of her singing, despite the cost. The Song of the Lark presents Cather’s vision of a true artist. The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition includes a historical essay providing fresh insight into the novel and Cather’s writing process, photographs and maps, and explanatory notes providing a full range of biographical and historical information. The novel, edited according to standards set by the Committee on Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association, presents a clean, authoritative text of the first edition and charts the subsequent drastic revisions.

My Ántonia is a novel published in 1918 by American writer Willa Cather, considered one of her best works. It is the final book of her "prairie trilogy" of novels, preceded by O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark.

The novel tells the stories of an orphaned boy from Virginia, Jim Burden, and the elder daughter in a family of Bohemian immigrants, �ntonia Shimerda, who are each brought as children to be pioneers in Nebraska towards the end of the 19th century. Both the pioneers who first break the prairie sod for farming, as well as of the harsh but fertile land itself, feature in this American novel. The first year in the very new place leaves strong impressions in both children, affecting them lifelong.

My Ántonia (first published 1918) is considered the greatest novel by American writer Willa Cather. My Ántonia - pronounced with the accent on the first syllable of "Ántonia" - is the final book of the "prairie trilogy" of novels by Cather, a list that also includes O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark.My Ántonia tells the stories of several immigrant families who move out to rural Nebraska to start new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest daughter is named Ántonia.

The first of her renowned prairie novels--a story that expresses Cather''s conviction that "the history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman." When Alexandra Bergson takes over the family farm after her father''s death, she falls under the spell of the rich, forbidding Nebraska prairie.