My Antonia

Willa Cather called My Antonia ‘the best thing I’ve done’. For Oliver Wendell Holmes, My Antonia had ‘unfailing charm, perhaps not to be defined; a beautiful tenderness, a vivifying imagination that transforms but does not distort or exaggerate’. H. L. Mencken declared it ‘one of the best [novels] any American has ever done’. Hailed by reviewers and readers for its originality, vitality, and truth, My Antonia secured Willa Cather’s place in the first rank of American writers. Cather drew deeply on her childhood days in frontier Nebraska for her fourth novel, published in 1918. Antonia Shimerda is memorable as the warm-hearted daughter of Bohemians who must adapt to a hard life on the desolate prairie. She survives and matures, a pioneer woman made radiant by spirit. This Willa Cather Scholarly Edition of My Antonia is edited according to standards set by the Committee for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association and it presents the full range of biographical, historical, and textual information on the novel. The selection of W. T. Benda’s illustrations and the historical photography and maps also illuminate the fiction of a writer who drew so extensively on actual experience. Kari Ronning is assistant editor of the Cather Scholarly Edition. Charles Mignon is professor emeritus of English at the University of Nebraska. James Woodress is the author of Willa Cather: A Literary Life and the editor of Willa Cather’s The Troll Garden , both available from the University of Nebraska Press.