My Ántonia was published in 1918, the third novel in Willa Cather's "Prairie Trilogy," which also includes O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark. The novel was a resounding critical success, with H.L. Mencken claiming, "No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as My Ántonia." The novel established Cather as a formidable figure in American letters, a reputation that she would retain throughout her life and beyond.
My Ántonia tells the story of the friendship between young Jimmy Burden, who moves from Virginia to Nebraska at the age of ten (as Cather had done herself), and Ántonia Shimerda, whose familiy has recently immigrated to Nebraska from...
