Download high-resolution image

O Pioneers!

Part of The Great Plains Trilogy

Author Willa Cather

Introduction by Blanche H. Gelfant

Paperback

$10.00 US

Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Classics

5.16"W x 7.66"H x 0.56"D (13.1 x 19.5 x 1.4 cm) | 7 oz (210 g) | 72 per carton

On sale Jan 01, 1994 | 256 Pages | 9780140187755

Grades 9-12 + AP/IB

Sales rights: World except UK/Ireland

Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies

View on Edelweiss

The first of Cather’s renowned prairie novels, O Pioneers! established a new voice in American literature—turning the stories of ordinary Midwesterners and immigrants into authentic literary characters.

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.

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.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

INTRODUCTION

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.

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 finally to New York City. There she joined McClure’s magazine. After meeting the author Sarah Orne Jewett, she decided to quit journalism and devote herself full time to fiction. Her first novel, Alexander’s Bridge, appeared in 1912, but her place in American literature was established with her first Nebraska novel, O Pioneers!, published in 1913, followed by her most famous pioneer novel, My Antonia, in 1918. In 1922 she won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours. Her other novels include Death Comes for the Archbishop, Shadows on the Rock, The Song of the Lark, The Professor’ s House, My Mortal Enemy, and Lucy Gayheart. She died in 1947. View titles by Willa Cather

Available for sale exclusive:

• Afghanistan

• Albania

• Algeria

• Andorra

• Angola

• Anguilla

• Antarctica

• Antigua/Barbuda

• Argentina

• Armenia

• Aruba

• Australia

• Azerbaijan

• Bahamas

• Bahrain

• Bangladesh

• Barbados

• Belarus

• Belize

• Benin

• Bermuda

• Bhutan

• Bolivia

• Bonaire, Saba

• Bosnia Herzeg.

• Botswana

• Bouvet Island

• Brazil

• Brit.Ind.Oc.Ter

• Brit.Virgin Is.

• Brunei

• Bulgaria

• Burkina Faso

• Burundi

• Cambodia

• Cameroon

• Canada

• Cape Verde

• Cayman Islands

• Centr.Afr.Rep.

• Chad

• Chile

• China

• Christmas Islnd

• Cocos Islands

• Colombia

• Comoro Is.

• Congo

• Cook Islands

• Costa Rica

• Croatia

• Cuba

• Curacao

• Dem. Rep. Congo

• Djibouti

• Dominica

• Dominican Rep.

• Ecuador

• Egypt

• El Salvador

• Equatorial Gui.

• Eritrea

• Ethiopia

• Falkland Islnds

• Faroe Islands

• Fiji

• Fren.Polynesia

• French Guinea

• Gabon

• Gambia

• Georgia

• Ghana

• Gibraltar

• Greenland

• Grenada

• Guadeloupe

• Guam

• Guatemala

• Guinea Republic

• Guinea-Bissau

• Guyana

• Haiti

• Heard/McDon.Isl

• Honduras

• Hong Kong

• India

• Indonesia

• Iran

• Iraq

• Israel

• Ivory Coast

• Jamaica

• Japan

• Jordan

• Kazakhstan

• Kenya

• Kiribati

• Kuwait

• Kyrgyzstan

• Laos

• Lebanon

• Lesotho

• Liberia

• Libya

• Macau

• Macedonia

• Madagascar

• Malawi

• Malaysia

• Maldives

• Mali

• Malta

• Marshall island

• Martinique

• Mauritania

• Mauritius

• Mayotte

• Mexico

• Micronesia

• Minor Outl.Ins.

• Moldavia

• Monaco

• Mongolia

• Montenegro

• Montserrat

• Morocco

• Mozambique

• Myanmar

• Namibia

• Nauru

• Nepal

• New Caledonia

• New Zealand

• Nicaragua

• Niger

• Nigeria

• Niue

• Norfolk Island

• North Korea

• North Mariana

• Oman

• Pakistan

• Palau

• Palestinian Ter

• Panama

• PapuaNewGuinea

• Paraguay

• Peru

• Philippines

• Pitcairn Islnds

• Puerto Rico

• Qatar

• Reunion Island

• Romania

• Russian Fed.

• Rwanda

• S. Sandwich Ins

• Saint Martin

• Samoa,American

• San Marino

• SaoTome Princip

• Saudi Arabia

• Senegal

• Serbia

• Seychelles

• Sierra Leone

• Singapore

• Sint Maarten

• Solomon Islands

• Somalia

• South Africa

• South Korea

• South Sudan

• Sri Lanka

• St Barthelemy

• St. Helena

• St. Lucia

• St. Vincent

• St.Chr.,Nevis

• St.Pier,Miquel.

• Sth Terr. Franc

• Sudan

• Suriname

• Svalbard

• Swaziland

• Syria

• Tadschikistan

• Taiwan

• Tanzania

• Thailand

• Timor-Leste

• Togo

• Tokelau Islands

• Tonga

• Trinidad,Tobago

• Tunisia

• Turkey

• Turkmenistan

• Turks&Caicos Is

• Tuvalu

• US Virgin Is.

• USA

• Uganda

• Ukraine

• Unit.Arab Emir.

• Uruguay

• Uzbekistan

• Vanuatu

• Vatican City

• Venezuela

• Vietnam

• Wallis,Futuna

• West Saharan

• Western Samoa

• Yemen

• Zambia

• Zimbabwe

Not available for sale:

• Aland Islands

• Austria

• Belgium

• Cyprus

• Czech Republic

• Denmark

• Estonia

• Finland

• France

• Germany

• Greece

• Guernsey

• Hungary

• Iceland

• Ireland

• Isle of Man

• Italy

• Jersey

• Latvia

• Liechtenstein

• Lithuania

• Luxembourg

• Netherlands

• Norway

• Poland

• Portugal

• Slovakia

• Slovenia

• Spain

• Sweden

• Switzerland

• United Kingdom

About

Excerpt