Willa Cather
The Contemporary Reviews

A broad sampling of the immediate reaction to Cather's volumes of poetry, fiction, and criticism.

Margaret Anne O'Connor (Edited by)

9780521112093, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 June 2009

576 pages, 19 b/w illus.
23 x 15.6 x 3 cm, 9 kg

The American Critical Archives is a series of reference books that provide representative selections of contemporary reviews of the main works of major American authors. Specifically, each volume contains both full reviews and excerpts from reviews that appeared in newspapers and weekly and monthly periodicals, generally within a few months of the publication of the work concerned. There is an introductory historical overview by the volume editor, as well as checklists of additional reviews located but not quoted. This volume offers a broad sampling of the immediate reaction to the appearance of Willa Cather's volumes of poetry, fiction, and criticism. While most reviews are from the major national journals and newspapers in major cities, some reviews show the responses in Nebraska, New Mexico, Quebec and other locales where Cather's works are set. The reviews are often flattering, sometimes angry, sometimes so careful in their dissection of Cather's work that they are worthy of study themselves. This collection shows forty-five years of intelligent attention to one author's life's work.

Introduction
April Twilights, 1903, 1923, 1933
The Troll Garden, 1905
Alexander's Bridges, 1912
O Pioneers!, 1913
The Song of the Lark, 1915
My Ántonia, 1918
Youth and the Bright Medusa, 1920
One of Ours, 1922
A Lost Lady, 1923
The Professor's House, 1925
My Mortal Enemy, 1926
Death Comes for the Archbishop, 1927
Shadows on the Rock, 1931
Obscure Destinies, 1932
Lucy Gayheart, 1935
Not Under Forty, 1936
Sapphira and the Slave Girl, 1940
The Old Beauty and Others, 1948.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: general [DSB]