Moving from Colorado to Chicago to the primitive Southwest, Thea finds her destiny not in romance, but as a great Wagnerian soprano in the Metropolitan Opera. In her lyrical novel The Song of the Lark (1915), Cather’s love of music and theater and her faith in the spiritual influence of the Western landscape find expression in the ardent and talented Thea Kronborg. Although she must contend with the shiftlessness of two brothers and the brutal murder of a third, her instinctive identification with the forces of nature helps bring the land to abundant fruition, and she finds her own happiness in a kindred spiritan engraver, gold prospector, and fellow dreamer. O Pioneers! (1913) is the story of a young Swedish-American girl, Alexandra Bergson, who is left to manage the homestead farm when her father dies. Also included is “The Sculptor’s Funeral,” about a world-famous young artist who remains without honor in his native town. It contains seven stories, including the justly famous “Paul’s Case,” a study of a young man who escapes the world of the ordinary and briefly tastes the life of romance. The Troll Garden (1905) was Cather’s first book of fiction. Panoramas of lonely prairie and open sky reflect the heroic aspirations and stoicism of her characters and the rebelliousness of their spirit. Set on the vast northern Great Plains, where the earth has only recently come beneath the plow, the stories and novels in this Library of America volume partake of an impressive physical space and a uniquely American ethnic. “Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet.” Willa Cather’s remark describes her own reasons for re-creating in her works the Nebraska frontier of her youth. Limited Time Offer: Buy all three Willa Cather volumes in a boxed set and save $45.

Song of the willa cather