My Antonia: Illustrated - Softcover

Cather, Willa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1544108907 ISBN 13: 9781544108902

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017

Synopsis

"Ever since the publication of "My Antonia" in 1918, it has been recognized not only as Miss Cather's greatest book, but as one of the outstanding novels of American literature." "My Antonia' is one of the very finest of all American novels." Hugh Walpole in the Bookman. "No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as 'My Antonia.'" H.L. Mencken. "'My Antonia' is packed with the feel of the country. A scant paragraph sets you out on the plains, and the breath of the wind that billows the long grass never leaves your face." Chicago Daily News. In the minds of many, Willa Cather is America's leading novelist. The widespread popularity of her later books has centred renewed interest on the four novels she wrote before winning the Pulitzer Prize. A final appreciation of Miss Cather's work cannot be won without a full knowledge of the strong, fresh talent that made itself felt in "Alexander's Bridge", "O Pioneers!", "The Song of the Lark", and "My Antonia". My 聲tonia (pronounced with the accent on the first syllable of "聲tonia"), first published 1918, is considered one of the greatest novels by American writer Willa Cather. This great American novel tells the story of several immigrant families who move to rural Nebraska. Antonia is the eldest daughter of the Shimerdas and is a bold and free-hearted young woman. Jim Burden, arrives in the town of Black Hawk, Nebraska, on the same train as the Shimerdas, when he goes to live with his grandparents after his parents have died. Jim develops strong feelings for 聲tonia, something between a crush and a filial bond, and the reader views 聲tonia's life, including its attendant struggles and triumphs, through that lens. The novel is divided into five books, some of which incorporate short stories Cather had previously written, based on her own life growing up on the Nebraska prairies. The volumes correspond roughly to the stages of 聲tonia's life up through her marriage and motherhood, although...

About this title

Review

It seems almost sacrilege to infringe upon a book as soulful and rich as Willa Cather's My 聲tonia by offering comment. First published in 1918, and set in Nebraska in the late 19th century, this tale of the spirited daughter of a Bohemian immigrant family planning to farm on the untamed land ("not a country at all but the material out of which countries are made") comes to us through the romantic eyes of Jim Burden. He is, at the time of their meeting, newly orphaned and arriving at his grandparents' neighboring farm on the same night her family strikes out to make good in their new country. Jim chooses the opening words of his recollections deliberately: "I first heard of 聲tonia on what seemed to be an interminable journey across the great midland plain of North America," and it seems almost certain that readers of Cather's masterpiece will just as easily pinpoint the first time they heard of 聲tonia and her world. It seems equally certain that they, too, will remember that moment as one of great light in an otherwise unremarkable trip through the world.

聲tonia, who, even as a grown woman somewhat downtrodden by circumstance and hard work, "had not lost the fire of life," lies at the center of almost every human condition that Cather's novel effortlessly untangles. She represents immigrant struggles with a foreign land and tongue, the restraints on women of the time (with which Cather was very much concerned), the more general desires for love, family, and companionship, and the great capacity for forbearance that marked the earliest settlers on the frontier.

As if all this humanity weren't enough, Cather paints her descriptions of the vastness of nature--the high, red grass, the road that "ran about like a wild thing," the endless wind on the plains--with strokes so vivid as to make us feel in our bones that we've just come in from a walk on that very terrain ourselves. As the story progresses, Jim goes off to the University in Lincoln to study Latin (later moving on to Harvard and eventually staying put on the East Coast in another neat encompassing of a stage in America's development) and learns Virgil's phrase "Optima dies ... prima fugit" that Cather uses as the novel's epigraph. "The best days are the first to flee"--this could be said equally of childhood and the earliest hours of this country in which the open land, much like My 聲tonia, was nothing short of a rhapsody in prairie sky blue. --Melanie Rehak

From the Publisher

Founded in 1906 by J.M. Dent, the Everyman Library has always tried to make the best books ever written available to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible price. Unique editorial features that help Everyman Paperback Classics stand out from the crowd include: a leading scholar or literary critic's introduction to the text, a biography of the author, a chronology of her or his life and times, a historical selection of criticism, and a concise plot summary. All books published since 1993 have also been completely restyled: all type has been reset, to offer a clarity and ease of reading unique among editions of the classics; a vibrant, full-color cover design now complements these great texts with beautiful contemporary works of art. But the best feature must be Everyman's uniquely low price. Each Everyman title offers these extensive materials at a price that competes with the most inexpensive editions on the market-but Everyman Paperbacks have durable binding, quality paper, and the highest editorial and scholarly standards.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1544108907
• ISBN 13: 9781544108902
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 134
• Illustrator: Benda W. T.