Die neu entdeckten Erzählungen einer der großen Stilistinnen der amerikanischen Literatur Mit so einfach erscheinenden Worten und dem klaren Rhythmus ihrer Sätze leuchtet Willa Cather das Innenleben ihrer Figuren aus und erweckt deren Umfeld zum Leben: Ob sechs Schulfreunde in einer Sommernacht auf einer Sandbank im Fluss von bevorstehenden Abenteuern träumen, Nelly Deane mit ungestümer Lebenslust nach den Sternen greift, der Lehrling Paul mit erschlichenem Geld in einem New Yorker Hotel die weite Welt schnuppert oder die alte Mrs. Harris versucht, ihrer Enkelin einen großen Zukunftswunsch zu erfüllen – wie nebenbei scheinen bei Cather die großen Fragen unserer Existenz auf. Und sie führt uns bestechend klar vor Augen, wie Gesellschaft und Landschaft bestimmen, wer wir sind. Bis wir uns von den Fesseln befreien. Größtenteils zum ersten Mal übersetzt von Agnes Krup, die in ihrem Nachwort zeigt, wie Leben und Werk der Autorin zusammengehören.
Willa Cather Book order (chronological)
Willa Cather's novels are celebrated for their evocative portrayals of frontier life and the enduring spirit of individuals seeking meaning in a changing world. She masterfully employs a lyrical prose style to explore themes of identity, belonging, and the profound connection between people and the land. Cather was particularly adept at crafting resilient female protagonists who navigate hardship with quiet strength and introspection. Her work remains significant for its keen psychological insight and its timeless depiction of the American experience.







Under Far Horizons - Selected Poetry of Willa Cather
- 100 pages
- 4 hours of reading
This collection showcases Willa Cather's poetic experimentation across various styles and themes, reflecting her personal experiences. Spanning from 1892 to 1933, the poems reveal the depth of her literary talent, complementing her renowned work as a novelist.
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories
- 196 pages
- 7 hours of reading
Willa Cather is celebrated for her vivid depictions of settlers and frontier life in the American plains. Born in Virginia in 1873 and later residing in New York City, her works reflect a deep understanding of the challenges and triumphs faced by those who shaped the American landscape. Cather's storytelling captures the essence of resilience and the human spirit against the backdrop of the vast, often harsh, plains. Her literary contributions have solidified her status as a significant figure in American literature.
A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays
- 228 pages
- 8 hours of reading
Willa Cather's collection presents a vivid portrayal of early 20th-century American life, exploring themes of identity, relationships, and the changing landscapes of the Midwest. Set against diverse backdrops, from vast plains to small towns, each narrative features ordinary characters facing extraordinary events. Cather's evocative prose captures the essence of love, loss, and the quest for meaning, reflecting the complexities of human emotions and the broader cultural context. This work showcases her literary skill and deep appreciation for the American experience.
The Burglar’s Christmas was originally published near the beginning of Willa Cather’s writing career in 1896 under the pseudonym of Elizabeth L. Seymour. The story follows William Crawford on the cold streets of Chicago as he contemplates the multiple failures plaguing his life, including his time at college and careers in journalism, real estate, and performing. Distraught, he tries one more role: thief. Attempting to burgle a residence and caught in the act by the lady of the house, William must come to terms with the choices that led him to that moment. Cather provides a heartwarming short story of redemption and love at Christmas, a timely reminder that kindness is in everyone, just waiting to be uncovered.
La Nièce de Flaubert
- 72 pages
- 3 hours of reading
Willa Cather (1873-1947) a déjà solidement établi sa réputation de grand écrivain américain avec, entre autres romans, Mon Antonia et Pionniers ! lorsque, au cours de l’un de ses voyages en France, en 1930, elle rencontre, dans un hôtel d’Aix-les-Bains, une fascinante vieille dame qui n’est autre que Caroline Grout, la nièce de Gustave Flaubert. La petite Caroline, dont la mère est morte en couches, a été élevée par son fameux oncle dont elle est l’exécutrice testamentaire. La Nièce de Flaubert dresse le portrait d’une femme surprenante, lien vivant entre un vingtième siècle déjà éprouvé par la guerre et l’âge d’or de la littérature française, dont Flaubert est l’un des plus grands représentants. Ce texte est avant tout un éloge ardent de la littérature et de la lecture, non comme passe-temps mais comme raison de vivre.
Youth and the Bright Medusa
- 146 pages
- 6 hours of reading
Recognized for her vivid portrayals of frontier life, Willa Sibert Cather's works explore the challenges and triumphs of life on the Great Plains. Her notable novels, including O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark, reflect her Nebraska roots and deep connection to the landscape. Cather's literary achievements were honored with the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for One of Ours, a poignant narrative set against the backdrop of World War I. Her journey from Nebraska to New York shaped her unique perspective as an author.
One of Ours
- 260 pages
- 10 hours of reading
The novel explores Claude Wheeler's internal struggle as he grapples with feelings of dissatisfaction and a sense of entrapment despite his comfortable upbringing in Nebraska. Set around the turn of the 20th century, it delves into themes of identity, societal expectations, and the search for meaning in life. Cather vividly portrays Wheeler's conflicts with his family's values and his quest for purpose, ultimately leading him to question the path laid out for him.
A collection of stories from both Mexican and Anglo writers evokes the tensions and joys of Mexican American life from the barrios of East L.A. to the bordertowns on both sides of the Rio Grande
Destins obscurs
- 152 pages
- 6 hours of reading
The jacket of the first edition of Obscure Destinies announced “Three New Stories of the West,” heralding Willa Cather’s return to what many thought of as “her” territory—the Great Plains. These three stories, “Neighbour Rosicky,” “Old Mrs. Harris,” and “Two Friends,” reflected her return to the well of memory that had inspired the books that made her reputation.
A Bantam Classic: Three Classics by American Women
The Awakening; Ethan Frome; O Pioneers!
- 404 pages
- 15 hours of reading
In one volume, readers now have access to three classic novels by outstanding American women authors.THE AWAKENING by Kate ChopinJean Stafford wrote, "Kate Chopin was long before her time in dealing with sexual passion...and the personal emotions of women." The Awakening, which shocked its contemporary critics in 1899, is now considered a masterpiece, a novel that traces a woman's growing sensuality, search for identity, and final self-destruction--in a drama played out against the sultry climate and insulated culture of Creole New Orleans.ETHAN FROME by Edith Wharton"There are only three or four American novelists who can be thought of as 'major' and Edith Wharton is one", wrote Gore Vidal. In Ethan Frome, her most popular novel, Wharton tells a tragic story of thwarted love with irony and bitterness that seems to reflect the author's own dissatisfaction with twentieth-century American values.O PIONEERS! by Willa CatherRebecca West called Willa Cather "the most sensuous of writers" because of her evocative descriptions of American life. Cather's magnificent tale of the Nebraska prairie, O Pioneers!, portrays a woman of strong will and even stronger desire to overcome adversity, bringing to life the prairie landscape in lush, provocative colors.
The Song of the Lark
- 580 pages
- 21 hours of reading
A story of a young woman's awakening as an artist and her struggle to escape the constraints of a small town in Colorado.
Alexandra, daughter of a Swedish immigrant farmer in Nebraska, inherits the family farm and finds love with an old friend.
Alexander's Bridge
- 144 pages
- 6 hours of reading
Alexander’s Bridge, Willa Cather’s first novel, is a taut psychological drama about the fragility of human connections. Published in 1912, just a year before O Pioneers! made Cather’s name, it features high society on an international stage rather than the immigrant prairie characters she later became known for. The successful and glamorous life of Bartley Alexander, a world-renowned engineer and bridge builder, begins to unravel when he encounters a former lover in London. As he shuttles among his wife in Boston, his old flame in London, and a massive bridge he is building in Canada, Alexander finds himself increasingly tormented. But the threatened collapse of his marriage presages a more fatal catastrophe, one he will risk his life to try to prevent.
The Professor's House
- 140 pages
- 5 hours of reading
The story explores Professor Godfrey St. Peter's struggle with change and nostalgia as he grapples with his dissatisfaction in life. Reluctantly moving to a new house, he clings to his past by maintaining his old study. A near-death experience from a gas leak serves as a catalyst for self-reflection, prompting him to confront his fears and seek a healthier way to cope with his evolving reality. The narrative delves into themes of identity, loss, and the challenges of embracing change.
Sapphira Dodderidge, a Virginia lady of the 19th century, marries beneath her and becomes irrationally jealous of Nancy, a beautiful slave. One of Cather's later works.
In this symphonically powerful novel, Willa Cather created one of the most winning heroines in American fiction, a woman whose robust high spirits and calm, undemonstrative strength are emblematic of the virtues Cather most admired in her country. Antonia Shimerda is the daughter of Bohemian immigrants struggling with the oceanic loneliness of life on the Nebraska prairie. Through the eyes of Jim Burden, her tutor and disappointed admirer, we follow Antonia from farm to town and through hardships both natural and human, surviving everything from poverty to a failed romance--and not only surviving, but triumphing. In the end, Antonia is exactly what Burden says she is: a woman who "had that something which fires the imagination, [a woman who] could stop . . . one's breath for a moment by a look or a gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things."
From one of the most highly acclaimed novelists of the twentieth century: a truly remarkable book" (The New York Times), an epic story of a life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert. With a new introduction by Claire Messud. In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour comes to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows—gently, all the while contending with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. Out of these events, Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.
Lucy Gayheart
- 126 pages
- 5 hours of reading
In this haunting novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of My Ántonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop performs a series of crystalline variations on the themes that preoccupy her greatest fiction: the impermanence of innocence, the opposition between prairie and city, provincial American values and world culture, and the grandeur, elation, and heartache that await a gifted young woman who leaves her small Nebraska town to pursue a life in art. At the age of eighteen, Lucy Gayheart heads for Chicago to study music. She is beautiful and impressionable and ardent, and these qualities attract the attention of Clement Sebastian, an aging but charismatic singer who exercises all the tragic, sinister fascination of a man who has renounced life only to turn back to seize it one last time. Out of their doomed love affair-and Lucy's fatal estrangement from her origins-Willa Cather creates a novel that is as achingly lovely as a Schubert sonata.
Povídka popisuje závěr života nebraského farmáře původem z Čech. Oslavuje postoje a hodnoty imigrantů na americké půdě.
Shadows On The Rock
- 142 pages
- 5 hours of reading
The novel follows a year in the lives of Cecile Auclair and her father Euclide, French colonists in Quebec, beginning in 1697. Euclide, a physician and apothecary, reflects on the last ship returning to France while managing the household after his wife's death, with Cecile taking on domestic duties. The story unfolds through character-driven narratives rather than a central plot. As winter approaches, Euclide attends to Reverend Mother Juschereau, while Cecile shows kindness to Jacques, the son of a troubled woman, by seeking shoes for him from Governor Frontenac. The young Bishop Saint-Vallier visits the Auclair shop, and Euclide expresses his disapproval of the bishop's extravagant lifestyle and decisions. In June, fur-trader Pierre Charron shares tales with the Auclairs and accompanies Cecile on a visit to friends. When five ships arrive from France, a celebration ensues, and Cecile receives gifts from her aunts. Although scheduled to return to France, she hesitates, worried about Jacques's well-being. Meanwhile, the Count, realizing he won't be recalled to France, frees Euclide from service, but Euclide opts to stay. The Count, on his deathbed, gifts a bowl of glass fruit to Cecile, and after his passing, the two bishops reconcile their differences.
A Lost Lady
- 64 pages
- 3 hours of reading
A Lost Lady follows Marian Forrester and her husband, Captain Daniel, in the Western town of Sweet Water. Narrated by young Niel Herbert, the story explores Mrs. Forrester's decline and reflects on the West's transformation from noble pioneers to capitalist exploitation.
My Mortal Enemy
- 78 pages
- 3 hours of reading
My Mortal Enemy is the eighth novel by American author Willa Cather. It was first published in1926. Willa Cather's protagonist in My Mortal Enemy is Myra Henshawe, who as a young woman gave up a fortune to marry for love-a boldly romantic gesture that became a legend in her family. But this worldly, sarcastic, and perhaps even wicked woman may have been made for something greater than love.











