Cather, Willa

Cather, Willa

 orig. Wilella Sibert Cather

(born Dec. 7, 1873, near Winchester, Va., U.S.—died April 24, 1947, New York, N.Y.) U.S. novelist. Cather moved with her family to Nebraska at age 9; she returned east 12 years later, eventually settling in New York. The Troll Garden (1905), her first short-story collection, contains some of her best-known work. The novels O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918), often judged her finest achievement, celebrate frontier spirit and courage. Song of the Lark (1915), Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920), and other works reflect the struggle of a talent to emerge from small-town provincialism. One of Ours (1922, Pulitzer Prize) and A Lost Lady (1923) mourn the loss of the pioneer spirit. Pioneers of earlier eras also inspired Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and Shadows on the Rock (1931).

---

Cather, Willa (Sibert) (b. Wilella Cather) (1875–1947) writer; born in Back Creek Valley (later Gore), Va. Raised on the Nebraska prairie and educated at the University of Nebraska, she went to Pittsburgh, Pa., where she worked as a journalist and teacher while beginning her writing career. In 1906 she moved to New York City to work on McClure's magazine (1906–12) before turning to full-time writing. (She published her early works as "Willa Sibert Cather.") Her spare, imagistic novels of pioneer life, several involving independent heroines in Nebraska or in Southwestern settings, include O Pioneers! (1913), My Antonia (1918), and Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927). She won a Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922). She continued to produce a respected body of work, including such novels as The Professor's House (1925), Shadows on the Rock (1931), and Sapphira and the Slave (1940), and several decades after her death she would be revived by feminists who saw anticipatory themes in both her life and work.