Drawing on a range of material from archives in the USA and from a variety of primary historical sources, this study places Cather's major fiction in its cultural context. Reynolds explores 'progressivism', 'primitivism' and 'Americanization' in such novels as My Antonia and O Pioneers! Willa Cather in Context develops interdisciplinary readings of this important Nebraskan novelist, placing her as a writer actively engaged with many of the key debates of early twentieth-century America, from immigration to evolutionary theory.

GUY REYNOLDS

Preface - Acknowledgements - Introduction - American Literature and the Failure of American Culture - Imperial History: O Pioneers! and the Settlement of the Plains - My Antonia and the Americanization Debate - One of Ours: the progressive Bildungsroman and the Death of Idealism - The Professor's House and the Incorporation of America - Death Comes for the Archbishop: the Ideology of Cather's Catholic Progressivism - Notes - Bibliography - Index