The Song Of The Lark

by Willa Cather, Melissa Homestead (Introduction)

Overview

100th Anniversary Edition

“Miss Cather, indeed, here steps definitely into the small class of American novelists who are seriously to be reckoned with.”—H. L. Mencken
 
“To reread Cather is to rediscover an arresting chapter in the national past.”—Los Angeles Times

Feisty Thea Kronborg, with her rapturous singing voice, is headed for great things. But her upbringing in a raw, provincial Colorado town has practically stifled her artistic ambitions. Only a few people in Moonstone recognize Thea’s world-class talent. One of them is Ray Kennedy, who, entranced by Thea’s voice, hopes to marry her, but is destined to unchain her. Sustained by determination and a pioneer’s spirit, and inspired by the Native American culture that surrounded her in youth, Thea makes her way in the world. But with loneliness as her constant companion, she comes to realize what sacrifices a true artist must make.…

With an Introduction by Melissa Homestead

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101003817
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/06/2007
Series:	The Great Plains Trilogy
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	480
File size:	572 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Born in Virginia, Willa Cather (1873–1948) moved with her family to Nebraska before she was ten. She graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1895, then taught high school and worked for the Pittsburgh Leader before being appointed associate editor of McClure’s Magazine. Cather published her first novel, Alexander’s Bridge, in 1912. In O Pioneers! (1913), she turned to her greatest subject, immigrant life on the Nebraska prairies, and established herself as a major American novelist. O Pioneers! was followed by other novels, including My Ántonia (1918), The Professor’s House (1922), and Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927).

Melissa Homestead is the Susan J. Rosowski Professor of English at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She is the author of American Women Authors and Literary Property, 1822–1869, and with Guy Reynolds is coeditor of Willa Cather and Modern Cultures.

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

Part I.	Friends of Childhood	1
Part II.	The Song of the Lark	105
Part III.	Stupid Faces	161
Part IV.	The Ancient People	189
Part V.	Doctor Archie's Venture	221
Part VI.	Kronborg	245
	Epilogue	309

What People are Saying About This

Vivian Gornick

Cather makes a great romance of the loneliness of the artist's vocation.

Leon Edel

The time will come when she will be ranked above Hemingway.