My Ántonia

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Broadview Press, Mar 12, 2003 - Fiction - 322 pages

Willa Cather’s My Ántonia is 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. The 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.

The Broadview edition includes a rich selection of primary source materials: the revised introduction for the 1926 edition; Cather’s “Mesa Verde Wonderland is Easy to Reach…,” “Nebraska: The End of the First Cycle,” “Peter”, and her comments on the novel; contemporary reviews and photographs.

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Contents

The Shimerdas
51
The Hired Girls
127
Lena Lingard
186
Copyright

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About the author (2003)

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.

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