Death Comes for the Archbishop

by Willa Cather

Overview

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather is a historical novel set in the American Southwest during the mid-19th century. It follows the journey of Father Jean Marie Latour, a French Catholic priest, who is sent to New Mexico to establish a diocese and bring order to the disorganized mission churches.

Along with his lifelong friend Father Joseph Vaillant, Latour faces cultural clashes, vast and rugged landscapes, and resistance from both Native American and Mexican communities. Despite the challenges, he builds relationships based on respect, faith, and understanding. The novel explores themes of spiritual devotion, cultural change, and the slow, graceful passage of time.

Cather's writing emphasizes beauty in simplicity, the endurance of faith, and the quiet heroism of those who work to bring light to remote places.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798897185955
Publisher:	Lushena Books
Publication date:	07/30/2025
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

WILLA CATHER, author of twelve novels, including O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and Death Comes for the Archbishop, was born in Virginia in 1873 but grew up in Nebraska, where many of her novels are set. She died in 1947 in New York City.

Date of Birth:

December 7, 1873

Date of Death:

April 27, 1947

Place of Birth:

Winchester, Virginia

Place of Death:

New York, New York

Education:

B.A., University of Nebraska, 1895

Table of Contents

Introduction
Note on the Text
Selected Reading
Chronology
PROLOGUE: AT ROME
BOOK II: MISSIONARY JOURNEYS
BOOK III: THE MASS AT ACOMA
BOOK IV: SNAKE ROOT
BOOK V: PADRE MARTINEZ
BOOK VI: DOÑA ISABELLA
BOOK VII: THE GREAT DIOCESE
BOOK VIII: GOLD UNDER PIKE'S PEAK
BOOK IX: DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP

What People are Saying About This

A. S. Byatt

What intrigues me about [Cather] is the intelligence with which she combines her formidable learning in European art and literature with her 'new' uniformed or formless American subjects, the settlers and pioneers with their unrecorded lives and their diverse heritages.

Editorial Reviews

A truly remarkable book ... Soaked through and through with atmosphere ... From the riches of her imagination and sympathy Miss Cather has distilled a very rare piece of literature. It stands out, from the very resistance it opposes to classification.” —The New York Times

 "The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world as solidly as our five senses build the uiverse around us.” —Rebecca West

 “[Cather’s] descriptions of the Indian mesa towns on the rock are as beautiful, as unjudging, as lucid, as her descriptions of the Bishop’s cathedral. It is an art of ‘making,’ of clear depiction—of separate objects, whose whole effect works slowly and mysteriously in the reader, and cannot be summed up.... Cather’s composed acceptance of mystery is a major, and rare, artistic achievement.” —A. S. Byatt

From the Publisher