ENGL 262: American Moderns (HC) Fall 2013

The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather offers thirteen original essays by leading scholars of a major American modernist novelist. Willa Cather's luminous prose is 'easy' to read yet surprisingly difficult to understand. The essays collected here are theoretically informed but accessibly written and cover the full range of Cather's career, including most of her twelve novels and several of her short stories. The essays situate Cather's work in a broad range of critical, cultural, and literary contexts, and the introduction explores current trends in Cather scholarship as well as the author's place in contemporary culture.

This volume offers a broad sampling of the immediate reaction to the appearance of Willa Cather's volumes of poetry, fiction, and criticism. While most reviews are from the major national journals and newspapers in major cities, some reviews show the responses in Nebraska, New Mexico, Quebec, and other locales where Cather's works are set. The reviews are often flattering, sometimes angry, sometimes so careful in their dissection of Cather's work that they are worthy of study themselves. This collection shows forty-five years of intelligent attention to one author's life's work.