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Book Cover for: My Ántonia, Willa Cather

My Ántonia

Willa Cather

"The best thing I've done is "My Á ntonia,"" recalled Willa Cather. "I feel I've made a contribution to American letters with that book."

An unconventional novel of prairie life, "My Á ntonia" tells the story of a remarkable woman whose strength and passion epitomize the pioneer spirit. ´ Antonia Shimerda returns to Black Hawk, Nebraska, to made a fresh start after eloping with a railway conductor following the tragic death of her father. Accustomed to living in a sod house and toiling alongside the men in the fields, she is unprepared for the lecherous reaction her lush sensuality provokes when she moves to the city. Despite betrayal and crushing opposition, Antonia steadfastly pursues her quest for happiness -- a moving struggle that mirrors the quiet drama of the American landscape.

"No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as "My Á ntonia."" --H.L. Mencken

Book Details

  • Publisher: Penguin Classics
  • Publish Date: Jan 1st, 1994
  • Pages: 320
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.77in - 5.06in - 0.63in - 0.47lb
  • EAN: 9780140187649
  • Recommended age: 18-UP
  • Categories: ClassicsWesterns - GeneralAction & Adventure

About the Author

Willa Cather (1873-1947) was born in Virginia and raised on a Nebraska ranch. She is known for her beautifully evocative short stories and novels about the American West. Cather became the managing editor for McClure's Magazine in 1906 and lived for forty years in New York City with her companion Edith Lewis. In 1922 Cather won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, the story of a Western boy in World War I. In 1933 she was awarded the Prix Femina Americaine "for distinguished literary accomplishments."

John J. Murphy (1898-1981) was a prolific and widely admired New Thought minister and writer, best known for his motivational classic, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, an international bestseller since it first blazed onto the self-help scene. His pamphlet How to Attract Money first appeared in 1955, and likewise entered many editions. Murphy wrote widely on the auto-suggestive and metaphysical faculties of the human mind and is considered one of the pioneering voices of affirmative-thinking philosophy.

Praise for this book

"A book for our times . . . My Ántonia becomes an education in what it means to be American: to have come from elsewhere, with very little; to be mindful, amid every trapping of prosperity, of how little we once had, and were; to protect and nurture those newly arrived, wherever from, as if they were our own immigrant ancestors--equally scared, equally humble, and equally determined. . . . To read My Ántonia more than a century after its publication is a reminder of the timelessness of America's bigotries. . . . But, more powerfully, Cather's novel is a story of a country that can overcome prejudice." --Bret Stephens, The New York Times

"No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as My Ántonia." --H. L. Mencken

"The time will come when Willa Cather will be ranked above Hemingway." --Leon Edel