WILLA CATHERย was probably born in Virginia in 1873, although her parents did not register the date, and it is probably incorrectly given on her tombstone. Because she is so famous for her Nebraska novels, many people assume she was born there, but Willa Cather was about nine years old when her family moved to a small Nebraska frontier town called Red Cloud that was populated by immigrant Swedes, Bohemians, Germans, Poles, Czechs, and Russians. The oldest of seven children, she was educated at home, studied Latin with aย neighbor, and read the English classics in the evening. By the time she went to the University of Nebraska in 1891โwhere she began by wearing boyโs clothes and cut her hair close to her headโshe had decided to be a writer.
After graduation she worked for a Lincoln, Nebraska, newspaper, then moved to Pittsburgh and finally to New York City. There she joinedย McClureโsย magazine, a popular muckraking periodical that encouraged the writing of new young authors. After meeting the author Sarah Orne Jewett, she decided to quit journalism and devote herself full time to fiction. Her first novel, Alexanderโs Bridge, appeared in serial form inย McClureโ sย in 1912. But her place in American literature was established with her first Nebraska novel,ย O Pioneers!,ย published in 1913, which was followed by her most famous pioneer novel,ย My Antonia,ย in 1918. In 1922 she won the Pulitzer Prize for one of her lesser-known books,ย One of Ours. Death Comes for the Archbishopย (1927), her masterpiece, andย Shadows on the Rockย (1931) also celebrated the pioneer spirit, but in the Southwest and French Canada. Her other novels includeย The Song of the Larkย (1915),ย The Professorโ s Houseย (1925),ย My Mortal Enemyย (1926), andย Lucy Gayheartย (1935). She died in 1947.