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O Pioneers!

By Willa Cather

By Willa Cather

By Willa Cather

By Willa Cather

By Willa Cather
Introduction by Elaine Showalter

By Willa Cather
Introduction by Elaine Showalter

By Willa Cather

By Willa Cather

Best Seller

Part of Vintage Classics

Part of Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series

Paperback $10.00

Dec 01, 1992 | ISBN 9780679743620

Mass Market Paperback $6.95

Mar 01, 1989 | ISBN 9780553213584

Hardcover $24.95

Sep 06, 2011 | ISBN 9780307700919

Ebook $1.99

Jun 24, 2008 | ISBN 9780553905212

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    O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
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    • Paperback $10.00

      Dec 01, 1992 | ISBN 9780679743620

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • Mass Market Paperback $6.95

      Mar 01, 1989 | ISBN 9780553213584

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    Hardcover
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    • Hardcover $24.95

      Sep 06, 2011 | ISBN 9780307700919

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      Jun 24, 2008 | ISBN 9780553905212

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    About O Pioneers!

    The novel that first made Willa Cather famous—a powerfully mythic tale of the American frontier told through the life of one extraordinary woman

    One of America’s greatest writers, Cather established her talent and her reputation with this extraordinary novel—the first of her books set on the Nebraska frontier. A tale of the prairie land encountered by America’s Swedish, Czech, Bohemian, and French immigrants, as well as a story of how the land challenged them, changed them, and, in some cases, defeated them, Cather’s novel is a uniquely American epic.

    Alexandra Bergson, a young Swedish immigrant girl who inherits her father’s farm and must transform it from raw prairie into a prosperous enterprise, is the first of Cather’s great heroines—all of them women of strong will and an even stronger desire to overcome adversity and succeed. But the wild land itself is an equally important character in Cather’s books, and her descriptions of it are so evocative, lush, and moving that they provoked writer Rebecca West to say of her: “The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us.”

    Willa Cather, perhaps more than any other American writer, was able to re-create the real drama of the pioneers, capturing for later generations a time, a place, and a spirit that has become part of our national heritage.

    About O Pioneers!

    One of America’s greatest women writers, Willa Cather established her talent and her reputation with this extraordinary novel—the first of her books set on the Nebraska frontier. A tale of the prairie land encountered by America’s Swedish, Czech, Bohemian, and French immigrants, as well as a story of how the land challenged them, changed them, and, in some cases, defeated them, Cather’s novel is a uniquely American epic.

    Alexandra Bergson, a young Swedish immigrant girl who inherits her father’s farm and must transform it from raw prairie into a prosperous enterprise, is the first of Cather’s great heroines—all of them women of strong will and an even stronger desire to overcome adversity and succeed. But the wild land itself is an equally important character in Cather’s books, and her descriptions of it are so evocative, lush, and moving that they provoked writer Rebecca West to say of her: “The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us.”

    Willa Cather, perhaps more than any other American writer, was able to re-create the real drama of the pioneers, capturing for later generations a time, a place, and a spirit that has become part of our national heritage.

    About O Pioneers!

    The novel that first made Willa Cather famous—a powerfully mythic tale of the American frontier told through the life of one extraordinary woman—in a handsome hardcover volume.

    No other work of fiction so vividly evokes the harsh beauty and epic sweep of the Nebraska prairies that Cather knew and loved. The heroine of O Pioneers!, Alexandra Bergson, is a young Swedish immigrant at the turn of the twentieth century who inherits her father’s windblasted land and, through years of hard work, turns it into a prosperous farm. Fiercely independent, Alexandra sacrifices love and companionship in her passionate devotion to the land, until tragedy strikes and brings with it the chance for a new life.

    One of our most beloved classics, one of the great heroines of American literature.

    About O Pioneers!

    One of America’s greatest women writers, Willa Cather established her talent and her reputation with this extraordinary novel—the first of her books set on the Nebraska frontier. A tale of the prairie land encountered by America’s Swedish, Czech, Bohemian, and French immigrants, as well as a story of how the land challenged them, changed them, and, in some cases, defeated them, Cather’s novel is a uniquely American epic.

    Alexandra Bergson, a young Swedish immigrant girl who inherits her father’s farm and must transform it from raw prairie into a prosperous enterprise, is the first of Cather’s great heroines—all of them women of strong will and an even stronger desire to overcome adversity and succeed. But the wild land itself is an equally important character in Cather’s books, and her descriptions of it are so evocative, lush, and moving that they provoked writer Rebecca West to say of her: “The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us.”

    Willa Cather, perhaps more than any other American writer, was able to re-create the real drama of the pioneers, capturing for later generations a time, a place, and a spirit that has become part of our national heritage.

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    My Antonia
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    See all books by Willa Cather

    Also by Willa Cather

    Death Comes for the Archbishop
    My Antonia
    Coming, Aphrodite
    The Selected Letters of Willa Cather
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    See all books by Willa Cather

    Also by Willa Cather

    Death Comes for the Archbishop
    My Antonia
    Coming, Aphrodite
    The Selected Letters of Willa Cather
    My Antonia
    See all books by Willa Cather

    About Willa Cather

    WILLA CATHER was born in Virginia in 1873, and was about nine years old when her family moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, she worked for a Lincoln, Nebraska, newspaper, then moved to Pittsburgh and… More about Willa Cather

    About Willa Cather

    WILLA CATHER was born in Virginia in 1873, and was about nine years old when her family moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, she worked for a Lincoln, Nebraska, newspaper, then moved to Pittsburgh and… More about Willa Cather

    About Willa Cather

    WILLA CATHER was born in Virginia in 1873, and was about nine years old when her family moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, she worked for a Lincoln, Nebraska, newspaper, then moved to Pittsburgh and… More about Willa Cather

    About Willa Cather

    WILLA CATHER was born in Virginia in 1873, and was about nine years old when her family moved to Red Cloud, Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska, she worked for a Lincoln, Nebraska, newspaper, then moved to Pittsburgh and… More about Willa Cather

    Product Details

    Category: Classic Fiction | Historical Fiction | Literary Fiction

    Paperback | $10.00
    Published by Vintage
    Dec 01, 1992 | 176 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780679743620

    Category: Classic Fiction | Historical Fiction | Literary Fiction

    Mass Market Paperback | $6.95
    Published by Bantam Classics
    Mar 01, 1989 | 224 Pages | 4-3/16 x 6-7/8 | ISBN 9780553213584

    Category: Classic Fiction | Historical Fiction | Literary Fiction

    Hardcover | $24.95
    Published by Everyman’s Library
    Sep 06, 2011 | 216 Pages | 4-7/8 x 8-1/8 | ISBN 9780307700919

    Category: Classic Fiction | Historical Fiction | Literary Fiction

    Ebook | $1.99
    Published by Bantam Classics
    Jun 24, 2008 | 224 Pages | ISBN 9780553905212
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    Praise

    The land belongs to the future… that’s the way it seems to me….I might as well try to will the sunset over there to my brother’s children. We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it — for a little while."

    O Pioneers! (1913) was Willa Cather’s first great novel, and to many it remains her unchallenged masterpiece. No other work of fiction so faithfully conveys both the sharp physical realities and the mythic sweep of the transformation of the American frontier — and the transformation of the people who settled it. Cather’s heroine is Alexandra Bergson, who arrives on the wind-blasted prairie of Hanover, Nebraska, as a girl and grows up to make it a prosperous farm. But this archetypal success story is darkened by loss, and Alexandra’s devotion to the land may come at the cost of love itself.

    At once a sophisticated pastoral and a prototype for later feminist novels, O Pioneers! is a work in which triumph is inextricably enmeshed with tragedy, a story of people who do not claim a land so much as they submit to it and, in the process, become greater than they were.

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