A Bantam Classic: Three Classics by American Women

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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.