Willa Cather

1. Willa Cather 薇拉.凯瑟（1873-1947） 06外师3班 周玉平 9号

2. Willa Cather • Brief Introduction • Writing Career • Works

3. Brief Introduction of Willa Cather • Willa Siebert Cather (December 7, 1873– April 24, 1947) was an American author who grew up in Nebraska . She is best known for her depictions of frontier life on the Great Plains in novels such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark.

4. Cather was born in 1873 on a small farm in the Back Creek valley near Winchester, Virginia. In 1883, Cather moved with her family to in Webster County, Nebraska. The following year the family relocated to Red Cloud, the county seat. Cather spent the rest of her childhood in the town which she later made famous by her writing career. When she grew up, she attended the University of Nebraska.

5. While in college, Cather became a regular contributor to the Nebraska State Journal. • McClure's Magazine serialized her first novel, Alexander's Bridge, a work heavily influenced by her admiration for the style of Henry James. • A resolutely private person, Cather destroyed many old drafts, personal papers, and letters. Her will restricted the ability of scholars to quote from those personal papers that remain.

6. Cather was born into a Baptist family, but in 1922 joined the Episcopal Church. After moving to New York, she began to attend Sunday services in the Episcopal Church as early as 1906. Cather died on April 24, 1947 in New York City of a cerebral hemorrhage and was buried in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.

7. Writing career • Cather joined McClure's. As a journalist, she co-authored, alongside Georgina M. Wells, a critical biography of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. It was serialized in McClure's in 1907-8 and published the next year as a book. • In 1942 cather moved out In New York Cather met a variety of authors. Sarah Orne Jewett advised her to rely less on the influence of Henry James and more on her own experiences in Nebraska.

8. For her novels, Cather returned to the prairie for inspiration and also drew on her experiences in France. These works became both popular and critical successes. • In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, published in 1922. This work had been inspired by reading her cousin 's wartime letters home to his mother. • Cather was celebrated by critics like H.L. Mencken for writing in plainspoken language about ordinary people.

9. Nonfiction Willa Cather and Georgine Milmine The Life of Mary BakerG. Eddy and the History of Christian Science (1909) (reprinted U of Nebraska Press, 1993) Willa Cather On Writing (1949) (reprint U Nebraska Press, 1988) Not Under Forty (essays) 1936 Novels Alexander's Bridge (1912) "The Prairie Trilogy": O Pioneers! (1913) The Song of the Lark (1915) My Ántonia (1918) One of Ours (1922) A Lost Lady (1923) The Professor's House (1925) Cather’s works

10. Cather’s works • Novels • My Mortal Enemy (1926) • Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) • Shadows on the Rock (1931) • Lucy Gayheart (1935) • (1940) • Collections • April Twilights (poetry) 1903 • The Troll Garden (short stories) 1905 • Youth and the Bright Medusa (short stories) 1920 • Obscure Destinies (three stories) 1932 • Not Under Forty (essays) 1946 • The Old Beauty (three stories) 1948 • Willa Cather: On Writing (essays) 1949

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