In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour comes to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows—gently, all the while contending with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. Out of these events, Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.  

Uprooted from a well-ordered life in Virginia when she was nine, Willa Cather came of age in the West during the last years of the American frontier. She developed a love for the beauty of the open grassland and an abiding interest in the Old World customs of her neighbors, the dreamers and builders who inhabit her fiction. This collection includes work from the early part of Cather′s career and clearly marks themes and landscapes that she would detail and explore for the remainder of her life.

Alongside THE BOHEMIAN GIRL, Harper Perennial will publish the short fiction of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, and Oscar Wilde to be packaged in a beautifully designed, boldly colorful boxset in the aim to attract contemporary fans of short fiction to these revered masters of the form. Also, in each of these selections will appear a story from one of the new collections being published in the "Summer of the Short Story." A story from Lydia Peelle′s forthcoming collection, REASONS FOR AND ADVANTAGES OF BREATHING, will be printed at the back of this volume.

The novels O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My �ntonia made Willa Cather's reputation and, though published separately, are now studied together as Willa Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy. These three novels, set in Nebraska and Colorado, cemented Cather’s reputation in the early 1920s as a writer who exalted the lives of ordinary people. Together, these novels portray the magnificent prairie landscape and the indomitable spirit of the men and women who inhabited, and adapted, to its harsh beauty: My �​ntonia: The intertwined stories of Jim Burden, an orphan from Virginia, and the elder daughter in a family of Czech immigrants, �ntonia Shimerda, who are each brought to Nebraska as children. O Pioneers!: The Bergsons move from Sweden and struggle to carve out a living on their Nebraska homestead. The eldest daughter, Alexandra, inherits the farm when her father dies, and devotes her life to its success even as other immigrant families leave the prairie, defeated. The Song of the Lark: Thea Kronborg grows up in a small Colorado town, next to the railroad that connects her to a wider world, a world she will conquer with her glorious voice and strength of will.

The Burglar's Christmas was originally published near the beginning of Willa Cather's writing career in 1896 under the pseudonym of Elizabeth L. Seymour. The story follows William Crawford on the cold streets of Chicago as he contemplates the multiple failures plaguing his life, including his time at college and careers in journalism, real estate, and performing. Distraught, he tries one more role: thief. Attempting to burgle a residence and caught in the act by the lady of the house, William must come to terms with the choices that led him to that moment. Cather provides a heartwarming short story of redemption and love at Christmas, a timely reminder that kindness is in everyone, just waiting to be uncovered.

'He drew a long sigh of rich content. The old life, with all its bitterness and useless antagonism and flimsy sophistries, its brief delights that were always tinged with fear and distrust and unfaith, that whole miserable, futile, swindled world of Bohemia seemed immeasurably distant and far away, like a dream that is over and done.' 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. (Part of Renard's Christmas Card Classics series, 25% of the RRP of each book sold goes to Three Peas, a small refugee charity. This year, instead of a Christmas card, why not send a book?)

The spirited daughter of Bohemian immigrants, �ntonia must adapt to a hard existence on the desolate prairies of the Midwest. Enduring childhood poverty, teenage seduction, and family tragedy, she eventually becomes a wife and mother on a Nebraska farm. A fictional record of how women helped forge the communities that formed a nation, My �ntonia is also a hauntingly eloquent celebration of the strength, courage, and spirit of America’s early pioneers. 

Includes the unabridged text of Cather's classic novel plus a complete study guide that helps readers gain a thorough understanding of the work's content and context. The comprehensive guide includes chapter-by-chapter summaries, explanations and discussions of the plot, question-and-answer sections, author biography, analytical paper topics, list of characters, bibliography, and more.

This Norton Critical Edition brings to life-through Cather's words, and through the words and images of others-the uniquely American frontier experience. In inscribing a copy of O Pioneers! for a childhood friend, Cather wrote, "In this one I hit the home pasture..." "Contexts and Backgrounds" includes a rich selection of autobiographical and biographical remembrances (including three interviews with Cather), literary contexts (by Cather and her contemporaries, Henry James and Sarah Orne Jewett), and writings on the American West (including selected letters that paint a picture of one family's life on the Nebraska prairie). "Criticism" provides seven contemporary reviews and eight modern critical interpretations by David Stouck, John J. Murphy, C. Susan Wiesenthal, Marilee Lindemann, Melissa Ryan, Guy Reynolds, and Sharon O'Brien.

'As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine-stains...And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.' My Antonia (1918) depicts the pioneering period of European settlement on the tall-grass prairie of the American midwest, with its beautiful yet terrifying landscape, rich ethnic mix of immigrants and native-born Americans, and communities who share life's joys and sorrows. Jim Burden recounts his memories of Antonia Shimerda, whose family settle in Nebraska from Bohemia. Together they share childhoods spent in a new world. Jim leaves the prairie for college and a career in the east, while Antonia devotes herself to her large family and productive farm. Her story is that of the land itself, a moving portrait of endurance and strength. Described on publication as 'one of the best [novels] that any American has ever done', My Antonia paradoxically took Cather out of the rank of provincial novelists as the same time that it celebrated the provinces, and mythologized a period of American history that had to be lost before its value could be understood. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The first of Cather’s renowned prairie novels, O Pioneers! established a new voice in American literature—turning the stories of ordinary Midwesterners and immigrants into authentic literary characters.

Set in the Nebraska landscape in a community evocative of Cather's own (Red Cloud), My Antonia tells the story of Antonia Shimerda, a Bohemian immigrant, and Jim Burden, who like Cather was uprooted from Virginia to the Nebraska prairie. Antonia and Jim, like many of the other characters in this 1918 novel, are based on Cather's childhood friends. This Norton Critical Edition is based on the first published edition of the novel. It is accompanied by explanatory footnotes, key illustrations, an introduction that gives readers a historical overview of both author and novel, and a note on the text. "Contexts and Backgrounds" is a rich collection of materials organized around the novel's central themes: "Autobiographical and Biographical Writings," "Letters," and "Americanization and Immigration." Willa Cather, Edith Lewis, Latrobe Carroll, Rose C. Feld, Guy Reynolds, Woodrow Wilson, Peter Roberts, Horace M. Kallen, Sarka B. Hrbkova, and Rose Rosicky, among others, are included. "Criticism" spans a century of scholarship on Willa Cather and My Antonia, from contemporary reviews by Henry Walcott Boynton, H. L. Mencken, and Elia W. Peattie, among others, to recent critical assessments by Terence Martin, Blanche Gelfant, Jean Schwind, Richard H. Millington, Susan Rosowski, Mike Fischer, Janis Stout, Marilee Lindemann, and Linda Joyce Brown. A Chronology of Cather's life and work and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

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. My Antonia depicts the pioneering period of European settlement on the tall-grass prairie of the American midwest, with its beautiful yet terrifying landscape, rich ethnic mix of immigrants and native-born Americans, and communities who share life's joys and sorrows. Jim Burden recounts his memories of Antonia Shimerda, whose family settle in Nebraska from Bohemia. Together they share childhoods spent in a new world. Jim leaves the prairie for college and a career in the east, while Antonia devotes herself to her large family and productive farm. Her story is that of the land itself, a moving portrait of endurance and strength.

The first novel in the Great Plains trilogy, this is an ode to the American Midwest and the immigrants who transformed it To the anger of her brothers, it is Alexandra who is entrusted to manage their family farm in the tough, hostile prairie of Hanover, Nebraska following the death of their father. As the years pass, Alexandra rises heroically to the challenge, finding strength in the savage beauty of the land even as loneliness and personal tragedies crowd in. A rapturous work of understated lyricism, Willa Cather's 1913 tale of a pioneer woman who tames the wild, hostile lands of the Nebraskan prairie is also the story of what it means to be American.

`For the first time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious.' Willa Cather's second novel, O Pioneers! (1913) tells the story of Alexandra Bergson and her determination to save her immigrant family's Nebraska farm. Clear-headed and fiercely independent, Alexandra's passionate faith in the prairie makes her a wealthy landowner. By placing a strong, self-reliant woman at the centre of her tale, Cather gives the quintessentially American novel of the soil a radical cast. Yet, although influenced by the democratic utopianism of Walt Whitman and the serene regionalism of Sarah Orne Jewett, O Pioneers! is more than merely an elegy for the lost glories of America's pioneer past. In its rage for order and efficiency, the novel testifies to the cultural politics of the Progressive Era, the period of massive social and economic transformations that helped to modernize the United States in the years between the Civil War and World War. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

'Quite simply a masterpiece ... I am completely bowled over by it; by the power of its writing, by the vividness of its scene painting and by the stories it tells' A. N. Wilson 'Where there is great love there are always miracles' Two French priests have been sent to New Mexico to reawaken the faith. There, they must contend with unforgiving landscapes, danger, rebellion and loneliness. But through their many years together they are sustained by faith, friendship and the awe-inspiring majesty that surrounds them. A work of great simplicity and sublime beauty, Willa Cather's acclaimed novel asks, what is a life well lived? Death Comes for the Archbishop is a masterpiece by the author of O Pioneers! and the great novelist of American frontier life. 'Its whole effect works slowly and mysteriously ... a major, and rare, artistic achievement' A. S. Byatt

Willa Cather's best known novel; a narrative that recounts a life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert.

Willa Cather's 1935 novel drew on her lifelong interest in music, which plays a transformative role in the lives of her characters. Cather's last novel set in the Great Plains tells the story of young Lucy Gayheart, who escapes life in small-town Haverford, Nebraska, in 1902 to pursue a career in music. In Chicago she falls in love with an older singer, Clement Sebastian, who finds renewed inspiration in her. However, tragic chance destroys their ensuing love affair. The novel has evoked divergent responses among critics and readers ever since its publication. This Willa Cather Scholarly Edition includes a historical essay providing fresh insight into the novel, the role of music, and Cather's writing process. It also features photographs, maps, and explanatory notes with a full range of biographical, historical, and cultural information. The textual editing of the novel, approved by the Committee on Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association, draws on corrected typescripts and proofs and presents a clean, authoritative text of the first edition.