Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1923, Willa Cather is one of the most famous voices of American Literary Regionalism. His favorite scenario is Maine and his characters are the pioneers whose work helped shape the identity of America. The critic August Nemo selected seven short stories from this essential author of American literature: A Burglar's Christmas A Wagner Matinee On the Gull's Road Paul's Case The Enchanted Bluff The Namesake The Garden Lodge

From the girl in Red Cloud who oversaw the construction of a miniature town called Sandy Point in her backyard, to the New Woman on a bicycle, celebrating art and castigating political abuse in Lincoln newspapers, to the aspiring novelist in New York City, committed to creation and career, Daryl W. Palmer’s groundbreaking literary biography offers a provocative new look at Willa Cather’s evolution as a writer. Willa Cather has long been admired for O Pioneers! (1913), Song of the Lark (1915), and My Ántonia (1918)—the “prairie novels” about the lives of early Nebraska pioneers that launched her career. Thanks in part to these masterpieces, she is often viewed as a representative of pioneer life on the Great Plains, a controversial innovator in American modernism, and a compelling figure in the literary history of LGBTQ America. A century later, scholars acknowledge Cather’s place in the canon of American literature and continue to explore her relationship with the West. Drawing on original archival research and paying unprecedented attention to Cather’s early short stories, Palmer demonstrates that the relationship with Nebraska in the years leading up to O Pioneers! is more dynamic than critics and scholars thought. Readers will encounter a surprisingly bold young author whose youth in Nebraska served as a kind of laboratory for her future writing career. Becoming Willa Cather changes the way we think about Cather, a brilliant and ambitious author who embraced experimentation in life and art, intent on reimagining the American West.

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.

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

A Lost Lady is a novel by American author Willa Cather, first published in 1923. It centers on Marian Forrester, her husband Captain Daniel Forrester, and their lives in the small western town of Sweet Water, along the Transcontinental Railroad. However, it is mostly told from the perspective of a young man named Niel Herbert, as he observes the decline of both Marian and the West itself, as it shifts from a place of pioneering spirit to one of corporate exploitation. Exploring themes of social class, money, and the march of progress, A Lost Lady was praised for its vivid use of symbolism and setting, and is considered to be a major influence on the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. It has been adapted to film twice, with a film adaptation being released in 1924, followed by a looser adaptation in 1934, starring Barbara Stanwyck. A Lost Lady begins in the small railroad town of Sweet Water, on the undeveloped Western plains. The most prominent family in the town is the Forresters, and Marian Forrester is known for her hospitality and kindness. The railroad executives frequently stop by her house and enjoy the food and comfort she offers while there on business. A young boy, Niel Herbert, frequently plays on the Forrester estate with his friend. One day, an older boy named Ivy Peters arrives, and shoots a woodpecker out of a tree. He then blinds the bird and laughs as it flies around helplessly. Niel pities the bird and tries to climb the tree to put it out of its misery, but while climbing he slips, and breaks his arm in the fall, as well as knocking himself unconscious. Ivy takes him to the Forrester house where Marian looks after him. When Niel wakes up, he's amazed by the nice house and how sweet Marian smells. He doesn't't see her much after that, but several years later he and his uncle, Judge Pommeroy, are invited to the Forrester house for dinner. There he meets Ellinger, who he will later learn is Mrs. Forrester's lover, and Constance, a young girl his age.

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.