In these nineteen stories Cather examines the plight of people hungry for beauty in a country that has no room for it; the mysterious arc of human lives; the ways in which the American frontier transformed the strangers who came to it, turning them imperceptibly into Americans. In these fictions, Cather displays her vast moral vision, her unerring sense of place, and her ability to find the one detail or episode that makes a closed life open wide in a single exhilarating moment.

Stories include: Flavia and Her Artists, The Garden Lodge, The Marriage of Phaedra, Coming Aphrodite!, The Diamond Mine, A Gold Slipper, Scandal, Paul's Case, A Wagner Matinee, The Sculptor's Funeral, A Death in the Desert, Neighbour Rosicky, Old Mrs. Harris, Two Friends, The Old Beauty, The Best Years, Before Breakfast, The Enchanted Bluff, Tom Outland's Story, Will Cather's Unfinished Avignon Story, and an article by George N. Kates.
WILLA CATHER was born in Virginia in 1873, and was about nine years old when her family moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, she worked for a Lincoln, Nebraska, newspaper, then moved to Pittsburgh and finally to New York City. There she joined McClure’s magazine. After meeting the author Sarah Orne Jewett, she decided to quit journalism and devote herself full time to fiction. Her first novel, Alexander’s Bridge, appeared in 1912, but her place in American literature was established with her first Nebraska novel, O Pioneers!, published in 1913, followed by her most famous pioneer novel, My Antonia, in 1918. In 1922 she won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours. Her other novels include Death Comes for the Archbishop, Shadows on the Rock, The Song of the LarkThe Professor’ s HouseMy Mortal Enemy, and Lucy Gayheart. She died in 1947. View titles by Willa Cather
All the stories Willa Cather wanted published in book form -- collected for the first time in one volume.

A ruined beauty whose dignity has survived a lifetime of loss and disenchantment. A Czech immigrant who finds a paradoxical contentment on the harsh expanse of the Nebraska prairie. A solitary young painter spying raptly and guiltily on his exquisite neighbor. These are some of the lives that Willa Cather renders, with a fine balance of compassion and detachment, in these nineteen stories. Here are the landscapes that have awed readers of novels like O Pioneers! and Death Comes for the Archbishop, from frontier farms to the red rock canyons of the Southwest.

Here are the great themes that Cather staked out like tracts of land: the plight of people hungry for beauty in a country that has no room for it; the mysterious arc of human lives; the ways in which the American frontier transformed the strangers who came to it, turning them imperceptibly into Americans. In these fictions, Cather displays her vast moral vision, her unerring sense of place, and her ability to find the one detail or episode that makes a closed life open wide in a single exhilarating moment.

Vintage Classics are quality paperback editions of the world's greatest written works. They are durably bound and are printed exclusively on acid-free paper.

About

In these nineteen stories Cather examines the plight of people hungry for beauty in a country that has no room for it; the mysterious arc of human lives; the ways in which the American frontier transformed the strangers who came to it, turning them imperceptibly into Americans. In these fictions, Cather displays her vast moral vision, her unerring sense of place, and her ability to find the one detail or episode that makes a closed life open wide in a single exhilarating moment.

Stories include: Flavia and Her Artists, The Garden Lodge, The Marriage of Phaedra, Coming Aphrodite!, The Diamond Mine, A Gold Slipper, Scandal, Paul's Case, A Wagner Matinee, The Sculptor's Funeral, A Death in the Desert, Neighbour Rosicky, Old Mrs. Harris, Two Friends, The Old Beauty, The Best Years, Before Breakfast, The Enchanted Bluff, Tom Outland's Story, Will Cather's Unfinished Avignon Story, and an article by George N. Kates.

Author

WILLA CATHER was born in Virginia in 1873, and was about nine years old when her family moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, she worked for a Lincoln, Nebraska, newspaper, then moved to Pittsburgh and finally to New York City. There she joined McClure’s magazine. After meeting the author Sarah Orne Jewett, she decided to quit journalism and devote herself full time to fiction. Her first novel, Alexander’s Bridge, appeared in 1912, but her place in American literature was established with her first Nebraska novel, O Pioneers!, published in 1913, followed by her most famous pioneer novel, My Antonia, in 1918. In 1922 she won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours. Her other novels include Death Comes for the Archbishop, Shadows on the Rock, The Song of the LarkThe Professor’ s HouseMy Mortal Enemy, and Lucy Gayheart. She died in 1947. View titles by Willa Cather

Praise

All the stories Willa Cather wanted published in book form -- collected for the first time in one volume.

A ruined beauty whose dignity has survived a lifetime of loss and disenchantment. A Czech immigrant who finds a paradoxical contentment on the harsh expanse of the Nebraska prairie. A solitary young painter spying raptly and guiltily on his exquisite neighbor. These are some of the lives that Willa Cather renders, with a fine balance of compassion and detachment, in these nineteen stories. Here are the landscapes that have awed readers of novels like O Pioneers! and Death Comes for the Archbishop, from frontier farms to the red rock canyons of the Southwest.

Here are the great themes that Cather staked out like tracts of land: the plight of people hungry for beauty in a country that has no room for it; the mysterious arc of human lives; the ways in which the American frontier transformed the strangers who came to it, turning them imperceptibly into Americans. In these fictions, Cather displays her vast moral vision, her unerring sense of place, and her ability to find the one detail or episode that makes a closed life open wide in a single exhilarating moment.

Vintage Classics are quality paperback editions of the world's greatest written works. They are durably bound and are printed exclusively on acid-free paper.

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