Willa Cather

Willa Cather is now considered a great American novelist. However, she was once thought of as just a regionally famous writer. Her works mostly focus on settings in the turn-of-the-century American West and the pioneering people who created lives there. She is credited with making western American settings interesting for readers in general, and she has been praised for her ability to delve deeply into the internal lives of her characters while keeping her writing easily accessible. Her most famous works include O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), My Ántonia (1918), and Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927).

Willa Cather: Biography

Willa Cather's life experiences inspired her writing career. Her childhood moving to the prairie sparked a lifelong interest in that landscape and the experiences of immigrants and pioneers. Early involvement in writing for local publications helped Cather get her foot in the door for a successful writing career.

Early Life

Willa Cather was born on December 7, 1873, in Back Creek, Virginia. Her family—Willa, her parents, and her six siblings—moved to Catherton, Nebraska in 1883. They only stayed in Catherton for a short while, moving to another Nebraska town, Red Cloud, in 1884.

At nine years old, moving from the woods of Virginia to the prairie of Nebraska was a huge change for Cather. Despite initially finding the new landscape oppressive, Cather soon fell in love with it. Her passion for the American plains would inspire many of the settings for her works.

Cather received an education in the schools local to her, beginning in a tiny, single-room schoolhouse in Catherton and then continuing in the larger school in Red Cloud. From a young age, she loved music, performance, and art. In 1890, Willa Cather graduated from Red Cloud high school, part of a graduating class of 3. She generally was seen as very intelligent, though odd. For a while, she was interested in medicine, a profession not typically open to women at the time. In her graduation speech, she spoke in response to the critical comments she had gotten about her scientific interests.

Living in Nebraska inspired Cather's lifelong interest in the prairie and pioneersPixabay

After graduating high school, Willa Cather attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. While there, she wrote for the Nebraska State Journal and the Lincoln Courier, where her writing career began. Cather graduated from university in 1895.

Adult Life and Career

Because she wrote for several publications during university, Willa Cather was able to secure a job working for a magazine in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania after graduating. Soon after, Cather was offered a position at the very influential McClure's Magazine in New York. This job in particular launched Cather into a successful writing career. Her time editing the magazine allowed her to meet many renowned authors who were active at the time. It also ensured that she was up-to-date with what was happening in the literary world. In addition, many of her works were published in McClure's.

While working at McClure's, Willa Cather also formed a close relationship with Edith Lewis. The two knew each other from school in Lincoln, Nebraska. They soon began renting an apartment together and supported one another's writing and editorial careers. Cather spent the rest of her life with Lewis. Though there is some debate, many scholars believe theirs was also a romantic relationship.

By 1912, Willa Cather left her job at the magazine and focus on her own writing. This decision was followed by a quick succession of Cather's most famous works, O Pioneers! in 1913, The Song of the Lark in 1915, and My Ántonia in 1918.

Willa Cather enjoyed success and acclaim during her long writing career. She drew from her childhood experiences living in the American west among pioneers from all around the world. Many of her books directly explore this plains pioneer lifestyle, including Alexander's Bridge (1912), O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and A Lost Lady (1923). Several of her books, including Death Comes for the Archbishop, received great critical praise upon publication, and Cather was well known internationally.

By the 1930s, however, many considered Willa Cather's focus on pioneers and the prairie outdated. Despite this criticism, she continued to write about the topics she was interested in. Cather's last novel was Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940).

Death

Willa Cather had been suffering for several years from a deep sadness rooted in the Second World War and the deaths of many of her family and friends. On April 24, 1947, Willa Cather died from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Willa Cather's tombstone is engraved with a quote from book 1, chapter 2 of My Ántonia:

Before she died, Cather asked Edith Lewis to destroy some of her writings when she died. Lewis did as Cather requested, destroying many letters and an unfinished novel manuscript.

Willa Cather: Books

Willa Cather is the author of 12 novels, several short stories, and a book of poetry. Her novels often feature hardy, pioneering characters and turn-of-the-century American west settings. Three of the most famous novels are featured below.

O Pioneers! (1913)

The Bergsons, a family of Swedish-American immigrants, live in turn-of-the-century Nebraska. Alexandra Bergson inherited her father’s farm. Though many immigrants are deciding to leave the prairie behind at this time, Alexandra is determined to build a successful farm on the land her father left her. This was Cather’s second published novel.

Alexandra Bergson refuses to give up on her prairie farm like many other immigrants in her community did.Pixabay

The Song of the Lark (1915)

Willa Cather’s third published novel, The Song of the Lark, is about a young woman growing to be a successful artist. It is set during the turn of the century in the American West. She follows her passion for music, eventually building a successful career as a singer.

My Ántonia (1918)

This novel explores the lives of two orphans who end up living in the American West as pioneers. The things they experience in their childhoods have deep and lasting effects on them. The impacts of their childhoods echo throughout their lives, profoundly affecting how their lives turn out.

Willa Cather: Short Stories

Willa Cather also wrote and published several short stories. These include “The Troll Garden” (1905), “Youth and the Bright Medusa” (1920), “Obscure Destinies” (1932), “Neighbour Rosicky” (1932), and “The Old Beauty and Others” (1948). Additionally, two collections of her short fiction—Willa Cather's Collected Short Fiction, 1892–1912 (1965) and Uncle Valentine and Other Stories: Willa Cather's Uncollected Short Fiction, 1915–1929 (1972)—were published decades after her death.

Willa Cather: Themes

Willa Cather tackles three common themes across her writing: nostalgia, pioneering, and the relationship between people and the land.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a theme that Willa Cather often explores. Cather illustrates nostalgia's stronghold over people in works such as My Ántonia. She explores the idea that nostalgic memories can become all-encompassing, even sometimes overshadowing a person’s current life.

Pioneering

Pioneering and homesickness are also typical of Cather’s writing. Many of her characters are facing disconnection from their original home. This removal from one’s home brings its own challenges and excitements, which Will Cather addresses in such books as O Pioneers! and My Àntonia. This topic is close to Cather's heart because she moved from Virginia to Nebraska as a young child. This gave her a first-hand experience of pioneering a life in a new land, and also allowed her to see many others in her community doing the same.

The Relationship Between People and Land

Willa Cather also often addresses the relationship between the land and the people who inhabit it. The land is often depicted as strong and enduring; sometimes it is dangerous and frightening, sometimes it is beautiful and inspiring. Cather often explores the close bond that develops between people and the place that they live. This theme is very prominent in O Pioneers!, in which Willa Cather depicts western pioneers who are determined to build a new life in a landscape they initially find hostile. Cather herself initially found the American prairie frightening and stark when she moved there as a child. However, before long, she came to have a passionate love for the western landscape.

The land and people's relationship to it was a lifelong interest for CatherPixabay

Willa Cather: Quotes

The following quote is from Willa Cather's novel O Pioneers!. Like many of Cather's works, this book addresses the relationship between people and the land. This quote illustrates the power that Cather perceives in land, and also gives a sense of the land's permanence in comparison to the lives and influences of people. The land is both a dangerous and beloved thing in O Pioneers!. It presents many dangers to the pioneers setting out to cross it and settle far away from their original homes, but it also comes to be a source of beauty and a way of life.

A sense of nostalgia is quite common in Willa Cather's writing. In the following quote from My Ántonia, Cather gives a glimpse into this particular emotion. This quote expresses the feeling that some nostalgic memories can be more precious to a person than anything else in life. In this book, strong nostalgic memories are formed in the minds of two adopted children who grow up in the American West.

In The Song of the Lark, a talented young woman comes into her own as a singer. She was in born in the American West and follows her passion for singing. As she grows as a person and an artist, she begins a successful career in music. The following quote describes her feelings about the importance and meaning of art, a running theme throughout the novel.

²"The Song of the Lark." The National Willa Cather Center.