My Antonia

Considered one of the most significant American novels of the twentieth century. Set during the great migration west to settle the plains of the North American continent, the narrative follows Ántonia Shimerda, a pioneer who comes to Nebraska as a child and grows with the country, inspiring a childhood friend, Jim Burden, to write her life story.

Joseph R. Urgo is a Professor in the English Department at The University of Mississippi, Oxford. He is the author of "Willa Cather and the Myth of American Migration" (Illinois UP 1995), "In the Age of Distraction" (Mississippi UP 2000), and other critical studies in American literature and culture.

Willa Cather's great novel is important both for its literary aesthetic and as a portrayal of important aspects of American social ideals and history, particularly the centrality of migration to American culture.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Willa Cather: A Brief Chronology

A Note on the Text

*My Ántonia*

Appendices:

A: Cather's Revised Introduction to the 1926 Edition of *My Ántonia*

B: Cather's "Mesa Verde Wonderland is Easy to Reach"

C: Cather's "Nebraska: The End of the First Cycle"

D: Cather's "Peter"

E: Interviews and Commentary by Cather on *My Ántonia*

i Latrobe Carroll, "Willa Sibert Cather," Bookman, 3 May 1921

ii "A Talk with Miss Cather," Webster County Argus, 29 September 1921

iii Eleanor Hinman, "Willa Cather," Lincoln Sunday Star, 6 November 1921

iv Rose C. Field, "Restlessness Such as Ours Does Not Make for Beauty," New York Times Book Review, 21 December 1924

F: Contemporary Reviews of the Novel

i Randolph Bourne, The Dial, 14 December 1918

ii H.W. Boynton, Bookman, December 1918

iii C.L.H., New York Call, 13 November 1918

iv A.L.A. Booklist, 1918

v Book Review Digest, 1918

vi Independent, 25 January 1919

vii New York Times, 6 October 1918

viii Nation, 2 November 1918

ix The Globe and Commercial Advertiser, 11 January 1919

x H.L. Mencken, The Smart Set, 17 February 1919

G: Photographs of Nebraska

i Primitive Dugout

ii Sod House

iii Threshing Scene

iv The Pavelka Farm

v Anna Sadilek

vi Blind Boone

vii The University of Nebraska

H: Immigration to and Migration Across America

i Nebraska Land Company, Czech Language Immigration Poster

ii Welcome to the Land of Freedom

iii Emigrants Coming to the "Land of Promise"

iv Crossing the Great American Desert in Nebraska

I: Music from *My Ántonia*

i "Oh, Promise Me"

ii "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie"

Select Bibliography