Books in Willa Cather Scholarly Edition series

Death Comes for the Archbishop sprang from Willa Cather’s love for the land and cultures of the American Southwest. Published in 1927 to both praise and perplexity, it has since claimed for itself a major place in twentieth-century literature. When Cather first visited the American Southwest in 1912, she found a new world to imagine and soon came to feel that "the story of the Catholic Church in [the Southwest] was the most interesting of all its stories." The narrative follows Bishop Jean Latour and Father Joseph Vaillant, friends since their childhood in France, as they organize the new Roman Catholic diocese of Santa Fe subsequent to the Mexican War. While seeking to revive the church and build a cathedral in the desert, the clerics, like their historical prototypes, Bishop Jean Lamy and Father Joseph Machebeuf, face religious corruption, natural adversity, and the loneliness of living in a strange and unforgiving land. The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition presents groundbreaking research, establishing a new text that reflects Cather’s long and deep involvement with her story. The historical essay traces the artistic and spiritual development that led to its writing. The broad-ranging explanatory notes illuminate the elements of French, Mexican, Hispanic, and Native American cultures that meet in the course of the narrative; they also explain the part played by the land and its people—their history, religion, art, and languages. The textual essay and apparatus reveal Cather’s creative process and enable the reader to follow the complex history of the text.

Shadows on the Rock, written after Willa Cather discovered Quebec City during an unplanned stay in 1928, is the second of her "Catholic" historical novels and reflects her fascination with finding a little piece of France in eastern Canada. Set in the late seventeenth century, the novel centers on the activities of the widowed apothecary Euclide Auclair and his young daughter, Cecile. To Auclair's house and shop come trappers, missionaries, craftsmen, the indigent—those seeking cures, a taste of France, or liberation from the corruptions caused there by the excesses of the French court. Set against these fictional characters, historical personages such as Bishop Laval, Count Frontenac, and others contend in the political life of the vast colony. This edition, which is approved by the Modern Language Association, will be of special importance to Cather scholars. Not only is Cather's mining of historical sources explored in extensive explanatory notes, but a recently discovered reworked draft of the novel has been incorporated into the textual analysis. There is also a generous illustration section with maps of the setting.

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.

Willa Cather said that O Pioneers! was her first authentic novel, “the first time I walked off on my own feet—everything before was half real and half an imitation of writers whom I admired.” Cather’s novel of life on the Nebraska frontier established her reputation as a writer of great note and marked a significant turning point in her artistic development. No longer would she let literary convention guide the form of her writing; the materials themselves would dictate the structure. The paperback edition contains all the text and scholarly apparatus found in the original Willa Cather Scholarly Edition. Edited according to standards set by the Committee for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association, this volume presents the full range of biographical, historical, and textual information on the novel.

Engineer Bartley Alexander appears to have a happy life in Boston with a successful career and a beautiful wife. He has been commissioned to design the Moorlock Bridge in Canada, the most important project of his career. With the onset of middle age, however, he grows increasingly restless and discontented, so much so that while in London he recklessly reignites a love affair with the sweetheart of his youth, the Irish actress Hilda Borgoyne. Although the tryst allows Alexander to recapture an element that has been missing from his pedestrian life, the relationship torments his sense of morality and eventually proves disastrous. Alexander’s Bridge explores the demands of Gilded Age society on the individual, as well as the capacity of the individual to violate his own standards of integrity. This Willa Cather Scholarly Edition provides an illuminating new framework for Cather’s debut novel. The novel is edited according to standards set by the Committee for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association and presents the full range of biographical, historical, and textual information now available, complete with illustrations and maps.

Engineer Bartley Alexander appears to have a happy life in Boston with a successful career and a beautiful wife. He has been commissioned to design the Moorlock Bridge in Canada, the most important project of his career. With the onset of middle age, however, he grows increasingly restless and discontented, so much so that while in London he recklessly reignites a love affair with the sweetheart of his youth, the Irish actress Hilda Borgoyne. Although the tryst allows Alexander to recapture an element that has been missing from his pedestrian life, the relationship torments his sense of morality and eventually proves disastrous. Alexander’s Bridge explores the demands of Gilded Age society on the individual, as well as the capacity of the individual to violate his own standards of integrity. This Willa Cather Scholarly Edition provides an illuminating new framework for Cather’s debut novel. The novel is edited according to standards set by the Committee for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association and presents the full range of biographical, historical, and textual information now available, complete with illustrations and maps.