Chapter & Verse - Willa Cather

By Willa Cather

Literature is a world of words and wonder, able to take us on almost unimaginable journeys from the wild and fantastic to the grind and minutiae of life.

An author’s ideas are his building blocks, his architecture of the mind, building a structure on which all else will rest; the narrative, the characters, the words - those few words that begin the adventure.

In this series we look at some of our leading classic authors across two genres: the short story and the poem. In this modern world there is an insatiable need to categorise and pigeon-hole everyone and everything. But ideas, these grains and saplings of the brain, need to roam, to explore and find their perfect literary use vehicle. Our authors are masters of many literary forms, perhaps known for one but themselves favouring another.

Story. Poems. Story. Within these boundaries come all manner of invention and cast of characters. And, of course, each author has their own way of revealing their own chapter and verse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chapter & Verse
• Release date: Feb 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781835474150

Willa Cather

Willa Cather (1873-1947) was an award-winning American author. As she wrote her numerous novels, Cather worked as both an editor and a high school English teacher. She gained recognition for her novels about American frontier life, particularly her Great Plains trilogy. Most of her works, including the Great Plains Trilogy, were dedicated to her suspected lover, Isabelle McClung, who Cather herself claimed to have been the biggest advocate of her work. Cather is both a Pulitzer Prize winner and has received a gold medal from the Institute of Arts and Letters for her fiction.

Book preview

Willa Cather – Chapter & Verse

Literature is a world of words and wonder, able to take us on almost unimaginable journeys from the wild and fantastic to the grind and minutiae of life.

An author’s ideas are his building blocks, his architecture of the mind, building a structure on which all else will rest; the narrative, the characters, the words - those few words that begin the adventure.

In this series we look at some of our leading classic authors across two genres: the short story and the poem.  In this modern world there is an insatiable need to categorise and pigeon-hole everyone and everything.  But ideas, these grains and saplings of the brain, need to roam, to explore and find their perfect literary use vehicle.  Our authors are masters of many literary forms, perhaps known for one but themselves favouring another.

Story. Poems. Story.  Within these boundaries come all manner of invention and cast of characters.  And, of course, each author has their own way of revealing their own chapter and verse.  

Willa Cather – An Introduction

Willa Sibert Cather had Welsh ancestry but like her parents Charles and Mary, was born in Virginia, on 7th December 1873.  Despite strong roots in the community, Willa was 9, when the family moved to Nebraska, to work the rich soil and avoid TB of which there were numerous outbreaks in Virginia. 

The vastness and drama of the Nebraska prairie and its’ extreme weather conditions as well as the many diverse cultures of the local families proved to be a major influence on her and can be evidenced in much of her later writing. 

Her first writing was for the local journal when she was at the University of Nebraska and later became the managing editor of the student newspaper.  

In 1896 she obtained work for a woman’s magazine in Pittsburgh and soon after became a regular contributor to the Pittsburgh Leader and wrote poetry and short stories for the Library, another local publication. 

Her first collection of short stories, ‘The Troll Garden’, was published in 1905 and contains several of her most famous including ‘A Wagner Matinee’ and ‘Paul's Case.’ As a writer Cather was now taking immense strides forward. 

Between 1913 and 1918 Cather wrote her Prairie Trilogy: ‘O Pioneers!’, ‘The Song of the Lark’, and ‘My Antonia’ and in 1922 the Pulitizer Prize was hers for her novel ‘One of Ours’ set during WWI.

Acknowledged as one of America's greatest writers’ further honours flowed. In 1943 she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The following year Cather received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

A determinedly private person, Cather destroyed many old drafts, personal papers, and letters. Her will would also restrict the ability of scholars to quote from personal papers that remained.

On 24th April 1947, Willa Siebert Cather died of a cerebral haemorrhage at her Manhattan home. She was 73.

Index of Contents

Paul's Case

A Likeness

Recognition

Paradox

In the Tavern of My Heart

Thou Art the Pearl

The Swedish Mother (Nebraska)

Dedicatory

Aftermath

Prairie Spring

Prairie Dawn

Sleep Minstrel Sleep

Winter at Delphi

The Namesake

Paul's Case

It was Paul’s afternoon to appear before the faculty of the Pittsburgh High School to account for his various misdemeanors. He had been suspended a week ago, and his father had called at the Principal’s office and confessed his perplexity about his son. Paul entered the faculty room suave and smiling.

His clothes were a trifle outgrown, and the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn; but for all that there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his buttonhole.

This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban of suspension.

Paul was tall for his age and very thin, with high, cramped shoulders and a narrow chest. His eyes were remarkable for a certain hysterical brilliancy, and he continually used them in a conscious, theatrical sort of way, peculiarly offensive in a boy. The pupils were abnormally large, as though he were addicted to belladonna, but there was a glassy glitter about them which that drug does not produce.

When questioned by the Principal as to why he was there Paul stated, politely enough, that he wanted to come back to school. This was a lie, but Paul was quite accustomed to lying; found it, indeed, indispensable for overcoming friction.

His teachers were asked to state their respective charges against him, which they did with