O Pioneers! (Virago Modern Classics)

Product Description O Pioneers! 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. Review Her voice, laconical and richly sensuous, sings out with a note of unequivocal love for the people she is setting down on the page―MARINA WARNERWilla Cather's second novel is abundant with interwoven themes. In one respect Cather bears witness to the early 20th-century Pioneers. The farmer taming the wild Northern States of America, battling with the elements and an unforgiving land to create a―JON SMITH, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEWThe most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us―REBECCA WESTShe is undoubtedly one of the twentieth century's greatest American writers―OBSERVER About the Author Willa Cather (1873-1947) was born in Virginia where for generations her ancestors farmed land. She became a teacher and journalist and is one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century.