“A Biographical Sketch of one of our great American authors and novelists, Willa Cather”

“A Biographical Sketch of one of our great American authors and novelists, Willa Cather”

My dear friends, thinkers and readers and fellow lovers of great literature and you of all thoughts, ideas and opinions, I bid and ask you to join with me in a voyage of intellectual discovery and come with me in the process of critical thinking. 

Today I have the great privilege and honor of presenting the life and works of one of our very greatest American writers and novelists, Willa Cather, the author of many lasting literary treasures. Her books, once begun, cannot be put down and once begun and read through, engage our minds and spirits and souls as few work of prose can and are able to do.

I am a great fan of English and American literature and when I read the works of these great authors, whether poets such as Keats, Shelley and Byron or prose writers such as Dickens, Thackeray, Kipling, Melville and Hawthorne, I acquire in reading these authors and knowing them a different level of understanding. In coming to know them I am lifted up intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. I will never regret the time I have spent in reading them and being exposed to them and absorbing their greatness, despite our American society telling us on a constant basis that the time spent with them has no practical value as producing no income. A life without this great literature is a life cheated and wasted of what these greatest of minds have to offer.

Willa Cather was born in 1873 and died in 1947. She is known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers, The Song of the Lark and My Antonia and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for her novel One of Ours. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, she moved to Pittsburgh and for ten years supported herself as a high school English teacher and magazine editor. At age 33 she moved to New York City, her home for the rest of her life. She spent the last 39 years of her life with her domestic partner, Edith Lewis. 

She received recognition as a novelist of the frontier. Shortly after moving to Pittsburgh, she wrote short stories. Her first collection of short stories was published in 1905 and was entitled The Troll Garden. In 1906 she moved to New York City to take up an editorial position at McClure’s Magazine. Her first novel, Alexander’s Bridge, was published in 1912, followed by O Pioneers in 1913, The Song of the Lark in 1915, and My Antonia in 1918. These novels were popular and critical successes. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for her World War I novel, One of Ours. The popular Death Comes to the Archbishop was published in 1927 and later in that decade two more novels, A Lost Lady and The Professor’s House were published. Despite a degree of critical opposition, she remained a popular writer. In 1931 her novel Shadows on the Rock was widely read and in 1935, Lucy Gayheart became a bestseller. She published her final collection of short fiction, Obscure Destinies, in 1932. Her final novel was finished in 1940, entitled Sapphira and the Slave Girl.

Throughout her life her closest relationships were with women. She received several honors in 1943 and 1944. Cather had high regard for immigrant families who endured the difficulties of life on the Great Plains.

I have always derived great pleasure and enjoyment from Willa Cather’s novels. I particularly enjoy and treasure the three pioneer novels of life on the Great Plains: Song of the Lark, O Pioneers and My Antonia, as well as Shadows on the Rock and Death Comes to the Archbishop. These are in my estimation great artistic productions and having read them once, they are in my mind and consciousness forever, such is their greatness. I have also enjoyed her short stories immensely. I hope to read her work again and again. When time is available, I would love to read The Professor’s House and One of Ours and I know they will capture and captivate me as all her work does. 

Friends and my fellow lovers of great literature, if you have not read her work, go to your local bookstore and local library, together with your children, and obtain and read these wonderful books. Do not waste a minute and you will not regret the effort in getting these books.

I acknowledge my debt to the Wikipedia article on this writer.