Willa Cather was born in 1873 and raised in Virginia, where her ancestors had farmed since the late eighteenth century. At the age of nine, she moved with her family to Red Cloud, Nebraska, to join her grandparents and uncle. At first shocked and disoriented by the change in environment, Cather soon grew to love the prairie landscape. She later recalled becoming particularly attached to many of her immigrant neighbors: “I liked them from the first and they made up for what I missed in the country. I particularly liked the old women, they understood my homesickness and were kind to me” (Cather in Bohlke, p. 10). Much of My Antonia stems from Cather’s childhood memories, a source she drew on only after becoming an established writer. Graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1895, Cather went to work in magazine publishing, then left it in 1912 to write three novels, including O Pioneers! (also in Literature and Its Times), which won her renown as a first-rate novelist. My Antonia is Cather’s fourth and, for many readers, her most successful work. Later Cather’s novel One of Ours (1922) would win a Pulitzer Prize, and the novelist would continue turning out new titles until 1940.
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