Stout, Janis P. “An Overview of the Life and Career of Willa Cather.” In Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 123, edited by Allison Marion and Linda Pavlovski. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group, 2003.

In the following original essay, Stout discusses Cather’s life, career, awards and recognitions, and the overall body of work, while also examining the era in which Cather wrote and the critical reception of her works.

The World Cather Lived in

To understand Willa Cather, we need to understand her world. For that reason, having established the rough chronology of her life, we will look first at her world before resuming the discussion of her own life and career within that world. We will then turn to the books she produced during her career as journalist, short story writer, poet, and novelist.

Willa Cather lived a long life—from 1873 to 1947—encompassing the last quarter of the nineteenth...