On the eve of his move to a new, more desirable residence, Professor Godfrey St Peter finds himself in the shabby study of his former home. Surrounded by the comforting, familiar sights of his past, he surveys his life and the people he has lovedhis wife Lillian, his daughters, and Tom Outland, his most outstanding student and once, his son-in-law to be. Enigmatic and courageousand a tragic victim of the Great WarTom has remained a source of inspiration to the professor. But he has also left behind him a troubling legacy which has brought betrayal and fracture to the women he loves most."

My Antonia tells the stories of several immigrant families who move out to rural Nebraska to start new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest daughter is named Antonia. The book's narrator, Jim Burden, arrives in the fictional town of Black Hawk, Nebraska, on the same train as the Shimerdas, as he goes to live with his grandparents after his parents have died. Jim develops strong feelings for Antonia, something between a crush and a filial bond, and the reader views Antonia's life, including its attendant struggles and triumphs, through...

O Pioneers! tells the story of the Bergsons, a family of Swedish immigrants in the farm country near the fictional town of Hanover, Nebraska, at the turn of the 20th century. Alexandra, inherits the family farm when her father dies, and she devotes her life to making the farm a viable enterprise at a time when other immigrant families are giving up and leaving the prairie.

The Song of the Lark is the self-portrait of an artist in the making. The story revolves around an ambitious young girl, Thea, who leaves home to go to the big city to fulfill her dream of becoming a famous opera star. Along the way, her realization of the mediocrity of her peers propels her to greater levels of accomplishment, but in the course of her ascent she must discard those relationships which no longer serve her.

Professor Godfrey St. Peter doesn t like the new direction that his life has taken. When he and his wife move into their new house, he decides to keep his study at the old house so that he will not have to let go of the way life used to be. After a gas leak, causing a near death experience, that he almost welcomed, he realizes that he needs to find a new way to cope."

Short excerpt: If it had not been for the few stunted cottonwoods and elms that grew along its banks Canute would have shot himself years ago.

The Song of the Lark is a novel by American author Willa Cather, written in 1915. The title comes from a painting of the same name by Jules Adolphe Aime Louis Breton. The book's cover art] Set in the 1890s in Moonstone, a fictional place located in Colorado, The Song of the Lark is the self-portrait of an artist in the making. The story revolves around an ambitious young heroine, Thea Kronborg, who leaves her hometown to go to the big city to fulfill her dream of becoming a famous opera star. The novel captures Thea's independent-mindedness, her strong work ethic, and her ascent to her...

Special Large Print edition, with easy to read text, of Willa Cather's classic work.

Alexandra Bergson is the oldest child of Swedish immigrants new to the harsh untamed landscape of the American West. When her father dies, it is Alexandra who becomes the head of the family and struggles to soften the wild land around her.

'My Antonia' was first published in 1918. It was Willa Cather's fourth novel and her first recognized masterwork. The book follows the parallel stories of Antonia Shimerdas, a Bohemian immigrant, and the orphan Jim Burden, viewing their lives from childhood to middle age, and allowing the author to reveal the glories and hardship of farm life on the vast American Plains, from the joys of an early spring day to the tragedy of suicide. Literary essayist H L Mencken considered Cather an extraordinary novelist: "'My Antonia' is the best piece of fiction ever done by a woman in America...I know of...