My Antonia Paperback - 2013

Name: My Antonia
Price: 16.37 GBP
Availability: InStock
Author: Willa Cather
ISBN: 9781627300254

by Willa Cather

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About this book

My Ántonia (first published 1918) is considered one of the greatest novels by American writer Willa Cather. My Ántonia, pronounced with the accent on the first syllable of "Ántonia," is the final book of the "prairie trilogy" of novels by Cather, a list that also includes O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark. My Ántonia follows an orphaned boy, Jim, and a Bohemian immigrant child, Ántonia, upon their introduction to Nebraska as pioneers. The novel depicts the struggles and successes of the pair throughout their lifetime. The first edition of My Ántonia in 1918 opened with an introduction depicting a conversation on a train that was later cut from the novel in a revised 1926 edition by Houghton Mifflin

From the publisher

First published in 1918, and set in Nebraska in the late 19th century, this tale of the spirited daughter of a Bohemian immigrant family planning to farm on the untamed land comes to us through the romantic eyes of Jim Burden. He is, at the time of their meeting, newly orphaned and arriving at his grandparents' neighboring farm on the same night her family strikes out to make good in their new country. Jim chooses the opening words of his recollections deliberately: "I first heard of Antonia on what seemed to be an interminable journey across the great midland plain of North America," and it seems almost certain that readers of Cather's masterpiece will just as easily pinpoint the first time they heard of Antonia and her world. It seems equally certain that they, too, will remember that moment as one of great light in an otherwise unremarkable trip through the world.

First Edition Identification

First edition published by Houghton Mifflin in 1918. The first printing comprised 3500 copies, 2500 of the copies had illustrations by W.T. Benda printed on glossy paper, and 1000 uncoated paper. A second 'first edition' with a cut introduction was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1926.