A Lost Lady is very much a piece with Cather's other well-known novels, including O Pioneers! and My Ántonia. However, where these stories focus more on the pioneers, A Lost Lady describes the generations that follow, documenting the end of the American frontier. Other important books about the frontier include The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Ša, and Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
A Lost Lady was a significant influence on The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Like Mrs. Forrester, the Daisy Buchanan of Fitzgerald's book is a beguiling figure, who readers cannot clearly see, thanks to an unreliable male narrator describing her....
