Willa Cather

Beloved American novelist Willa Cather's nostalgic classic about life on the Midwest prairie. Emigrating from Bohemia to Black Hawk, Nebraska, with her family, ntonia discovers no white-framed farmhouse or snug barn. Instead, the cultured Shimerda family finds itself huddled in a primitive sod house buffeted by the ceaselessly blowing winds on the Midwest prairie. For her childhood friend Jim Burden, ntonia comes to embody the elemental spirit of this frontier. Working alongside men, she survives without compromising the rich, deep power of her nature. And Willa Cather's lush descriptions of the rolling Nebraska grasslands interweave with the blossoming of a woman in the early days of the twentieth century in a novel that is an epic chronicle of America's past. The novel Cather herself considered her best, My ntonia is one of those rare, highly prized works of great literature that not only enriches its readers but immerses them in a tale superbly told. With an Introduction by Marilyn Sides and an Afterword by Terese Svoboda

One of Ours is a novel by Willa Cather, first published in 1922. The book tells the story of Claude Wheeler, a young man from a rural Nebraska town who is searching for meaning and purpose in his life. Claude is dissatisfied with his mundane existence and feels trapped by his family's expectations and the constraints of his small town. As World War I breaks out, Claude sees an opportunity to escape his life and join the fight. He enlists in the army and is sent to France, where he experiences the horrors of war and the camaraderie of his fellow soldiers. Through his experiences, Claude begins to find a sense of purpose and meaning in his life. The novel explores themes of identity, belonging, and the search for meaning in a rapidly changing world. Cather's vivid descriptions of the Nebraska landscape and the battlefields of France provide a rich backdrop for the story. One of Ours won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1923 and is considered one of Cather's most accomplished works. This Is A New Release Of The Original 1922 Edition. This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Complete in one volume The Prairie Trilogy is a thematically linked series of three novels by Willa Cather. O Pioneers Alexandra Bergson inherits the family farm when her father passes away. She decides to make a go of it when so many other immigrant families are giving up at the turn of the twentieth century. The Song of the Lark Thea Kronborg is a piano teacher with a voice that came from the heavens. She seeks to use her gift, and in so doing, must decide which sacrifices she must make to live to her fullest potential. My Antonia After his parents die, Jim Burden moves to Black Hawk, Nebraska to live with his grandparents. There he meets and falls for ntonia, and through his viewpoint, we explore ntonia's past.

O Pioneers is the first book in Willa Cather's Great Plains Trilogy. Alexandra Bergson inherits the family farm when her father passes away. She decides to make a go of it when so many other immigrant families are giving up at the turn of the twentieth century. This Large Print Edition is presented in easy-to-read 16 point type.

My ntonia is the third book in Willa Cather's Prairie Trilogy. Fear not, they can be read in any order as they each stand alone. After his parents die, Jim Burden moves to Black Hawk, Nebraska to live with his grandparents. There he meets and falls for ntonia, and through his viewpoint, we explore ntonia's past.

Hailed by reviewers and readers for its originality, vitality, and truth, this novel secured Willa Cather a place in the first rank of American writers. Cather called My Ántonia “the best thing I’ve done.” For Oliver Wendell Holmes, My Ántonia had “unfailing charm, perhaps not to be defined; a beautiful tenderness, a vivifying imagination that transforms but does not distort or exaggerate.” H. L. Mencken declared it “one of the best [novels] any American has ever done.” Cather drew deeply on her childhood days in frontier Nebraska for this, her fourth novel, published in 1918. Old immigrant neighbors inspired many of the characters, particularly the heroine. Ántonia Shimerda is memorable as the warmhearted daughter of Bohemians who must adapt to a hard life on the desolate prairie. She survives and matures, a pioneer woman made radiant by spirit. W. T. Benda’s illustrations further illuminate the fiction of a writer who drew so extensively on actual experience.

Willa Cather’s third novel, The Song of the Lark, depicts the growth of an artist, singer Thea Kronborg, a character inspired by the Swedish-born immigrant and renowned Wagnerian soprano Olive Fremstad. Thea’s early life, however, 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 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.

One of the foremost American novelists of the early twentieth century, Willa Cather (1873-1947) was born in Virginia but grew up in Nebraska. Before she wrote the novels that would make her famous, she was known as a poet, the most popular of her poems reprinted many times in national magazines and anthologies. In such lyrical poems as ‘Prairie Dawn’, ‘The Hawthorn Tree,’ ‘Going Home’ and ‘Winter at Delphi’, Cather exhibits both a finely tuned sensitivity to the beauties of the physical world and a richly symbolic use of the landscapes of myth. The themes that were to animate her later masterpieces found their first expression in these haunting, elegiac ballads and sonnets. Cather’s O Pioneers! and My Antonia are already available in Everyman’s Library.

Before Willa Cather went on to write the novels that would make her famous, she was known as a poet, the most popular of her poems reprinted many times in national magazines and anthologies. Her first book of poetry, April Twilights, was published in 1903, but Cather significantly revised and expanded it in a 1923 edition entitled April Twilights and Other Poems. This Everyman's Library edition reproduces for the first time all the poems from both versions of April Twilights, along with a number of uncollected and previously unpublished poems by Cather, as well as an illuminating selection of her newly released letters. In such lyrical poems as "The Hawthorn Tree," "Winter at Delphi," "Prairie Spring," "Poor Marty," and "Going Home," Cather exhibits both a finely tuned sensitivity to the beauties of the physical world and a richly symbolic use of the landscapes of myth. The themes that were to animate her later masterpieces found their first expression in these haunting, elegiac ballads and sonnets.

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.

From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers--featuring cover art by type superstar Jessica Hische It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and gift-worthy hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet by superstar type designer Jessica Hische, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin's own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility. A collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series design encompasses foil-stamped paper-over-board cases in a rainbow-hued spectrum across all twenty-six book spines and a dacorative stain on all three paper edges. Penguin Drop Caps debuts with an "A" for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a "B" for Charlotte Bront 's Jane Eyre, and a "C" for Willa Cather's My ntonia, and continues with more classics from Penguin. C is for Cather. My ntonia is considered one of the most significant American novels of the twentieth century. Set during the great migration west to settle the plains of the North American continent, the narrative follows Antonia Shimerda, a pioneer who comes to Nebraska as a child and grows with the country, inspiring a childhood friend, Jim Burden, to write her life story. The novel is important both for its literary aesthetic and as a portrayal of important aspects of American social ideals and history, particularly the centrality of migration to American culture.

My ntonia, first published 1918, is considered one of the greatest novels by American writer Willa Cather. It is the final book of her "prairie trilogy" of novels, the companion volumes being O Pioneers and The Song of the Lark.