Recommended Reading

If you enjoyed reading My Ántonia and would like to learn more about the book, the author or the historical context of the novel, the Chicago Public Library recommends the following list of print and online resources. For more information, visit or call your neighborhood library or call (312) 747-4300.

Quicklinks: By Willa Cather | About Willa Cather | Web Resources | For Young Readers

The Writings of Willa Cather

Most of Cather’s poems and short stories, as well as her essays, have been anthologized. For a comprehensive bibliography, see JoAnna Lathrop’s Willa Cather: A Checklist of Her Published Writings (University of Nebraska Press, 1975).

Novels

• Alexander’s Bridge, 1912
• O Pioneers!, New York, 1913
• The Song of the Lark, 1915
• My Ántonia, 1918
• One of Ours, 1922
• A Lost Lady, 1923
• The Professor’s House, 1925
• My Mortal Enemy, 1926
• Death Comes for the Archbishop, 1927
• Shadows on the Rock, 1931
• Lucy Gayheart, 1935
• Sapphira and the Slave Girl, 1940

Short Stories

• The Troll Garden, 1905
• Youth and the Bright Medusa, 1920
• Obscure Destinies, 1932

Nonfiction

• The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy, and the History of Christian Science (editor), 1909
• Not Under Forty, 1936

Verse

• April Twilights, 1903 (revised editions, with additional poems, appeared in 1923 and 1962)

Collected Works and Works Published Posthumously

• The Novels and Stories of Willa Cather, 1937-41
• The Old Beauty, and Others, 1948
• Willa Cather on Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art, 1949
• Writings from Willa Cather’s Campus Years, 1950
• Willa Cather in Europe, 1956
• Early Stories, 1957
• Willa Cather’s Collected Short Fiction, 1892-1912, 1965
• The Kingdom of Art: Willa Cather’s First Principles and Critical Statements, 1893-1896, 1966
• The World and the Parish: Willa Cather’s Articles and Reviews, 1893-1902, 1970
• Uncle Valentine and Other Stories: Willa Cather’s Uncollected Short Fiction, 1915-1929, 1973
• Willa Cather in Person: Interviews, Speeches and Letters, 1986
• Willa Cather: Twenty-four Stories, 1987

Selected Writings About Willa Cather and My Ántonia

Unless otherwise noted, these resources are available on all Chicago Public Library computers and on other computers with your Chicago Public Library card.

“Cather and the Academy.”
By Joan Acocella
New Yorker, 71 (1995)

Willa Cather: A Critical Biography
By E.K. Brown and Leon Edel
Knopf, 1953

“My Ántonia”: The Road Home
By John J. Murphy
Twayne Publishers, 1989

The American Novel: New Essays on “My Ántonia”
Edited by Sharon O’Brien
Cambridge University Press, 1999

Approaches to Teaching Cather’s “My Ántonia”
By Susan J. Rosowski
Modern Language Association, 1989

The Voyage Perilous: Willa Cather’s Romanticism
University of Nebraska, 1986

Willa Cather: A Literary Life
By James Woodress
University of Nebraska Press, 1987

Willa Cather: A Pictorial Memoir
By Lucia Woods and Bernice Slote
University of Nebraska Press, 1973

Web Resources

NebraskaStudies.org
This site, designed for students and teachers, offers a timeline for nine major periods in Nebraska history. There are also classroom activities and lesson plans for teachers. Included among the resources is a brief essay entitled “The Immigrant Experience: The Czechs Move to Nebraska,” as well as images of various dugout and sod homes.

Online Literary Criticism Collection: Willa Cather
Internet Public Library
This site, from the Internet Public Library, offers links to criticism, biographies and other sites about Willa Cather.

Willa Cather
About.com
This site includes links to useful Willa Cather websites.

Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation
This organization, which “encourages and promotes increased understanding and appreciation of the life, time, settings and work of Willa Cather,” provides full-text online access to many Cather works, including My Ántonia, as well as an extensive array of links to almost everything Cather-related.

Willa Cather’s My Ántonia: “The Happiness and the Curse” (Lesson Plan)
By Carol Leavitt Altieri
1987
This lesson plan is very thorough and provides numerous activities and assignments, as well as a list of additional classroom resources. It is geared toward high school students but can be adapted for higher-level students.

Books for Younger Readers

Picture Books and Easy Chapter Books (Ages 5–8)

Dandelions
By Eve Bunting
Harcourt Brace, 1995
Zoe and her family move from Illinois to the endless plains of Nebraska, where they must create a sod house, a well and a new life under difficult circumstances.

Prairie Town
By Bonnie Geisert
Houghton Mifflin, 1998
Follow the seasons and the activities of the townsfolk and farm folk in a small Midwestern town.

My Prairie Christmas
By Brett Harvey
Holiday House, 1990
What will Elenore and her family’s first Christmas be like on this treeless prairie?

Dakota Dugout
By Ann Turner
Macmillan, 1985
A grandmother shares her experiences of living in a sod house on the Dakota prairie with her granddaughter.

Fiction (Ages 9 and up)

Addie Across the Prairie
By Laurie Lawlor
Albert Whitman, 1986
Addie leaves behind her friend Eleanor to homestead with her family in the vast Dakota territory only to face hardships that challenge her pioneer spirit.

The Journal of Sean Sullivan: A Transcontinental Railroad Worker (My Name Is America)
By William Durbin
Scholastic, 1999
Follow Sean’s journey as he experiences the rough and rowdy town life that exists along the route of the Union Pacific railroad.

Little House on the Prairie
By Laura Ingalls Wilder
HarperCollins, 1961
This is the first in the classic Little House series, which explores the life and times of the Ingalls’ family as they make their living on the prairie.

Meet Kirsten: An American Girl
By Janet Shaw
Pleasant, 1986
Peek into the past and share the joys and sorrows that Kirsten Larson and her family encounter as they journey from Sweden to America to settle on the frontier land of Minnesota.

My Daniel
By Pam Conrad
HarperCollins, 1989
While visiting a history museum, Grandmother recounts the story of her beloved brother Daniel’s great find—dinosaur bones on their Nebraska farm.

Old Yeller
By Fred Gipson
HarperCollins, 1956
This classic story depicts the power of friendship that develops between a boy and his dog in Texas during the 1860s.

Prairie Songs
By Pam Conrad
HarperCollins, 1989
Louisa Downing, a homesteader on the Nebraska prairie, watches as a young doctor’s wife, Emmeline, is overwhelmed and struggles with the hardships of prairie life that Louisa loves.

Sarah, Plain and Tall
By Patricia MacLachlan
Caleb and Anna’s father invites Sarah to leave her beloved home out East and to be his mail-order bride in his prairie home.
Sequels: Skylark, Caleb’s Story

If you enjoyed reading Willa Cather, you might also enjoy reading works by Conrad Richter, Ole Edvart, Vilhelm Mober, Wallace Stegner, Eudora Welty and Barbara Kingsolver.