Packaged in handsome, affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is
a new series of essential literary works. It features literary phenomena
with influence and themes so great that, after their publication, they
changed literature forever. From the musings of literary geniuses like
Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the striking
personal narrative of Solomon Northup in Twelve Years a Slave, this
new series is a comprehensive collection of our history through the
words of the exceptional few.
My Ántonia, a novel by Willa Cather, tells the story of friendship
between Ántonia Shimerda--a young woman who moves to the Midwestern
prairie with her bohemian family--and Jim Burden, an orphaned child who
moves from Virginia to the Midwest to be with his grandparents. The
narrative is majorly told from the perspective of Burden, almost
peripherally, as a memoir of his childhood in Nebraska. It is here where
he meets Ántonia and her family, his new neighbors. Eager to learn, Jim
teaches Ántonia English and they become fast friends.
When Ántonia's father tragically commits suicide, Ántonia discontinues
her lessons with Jim and begins to work on the farm where she and Jim
share countless memorable experiences together. After being accepted
into Lincoln University, Jim moves away. Meanwhile, Ántonia copes with
being abandoned by her fiancée and bearing an illegitimate child. When
Jim graduates he returns to Nebraska and visits her before he starts law
school, promising her that he'd visit again very soon. Despite keeping
in touch, it is not until twenty years after this meeting that they meet
again. Although in very different places in their lives, they pick up
where they left off--the bond they formed as children remaining
completely intact.
A classic story by renowned American author Willa Cather, My Ántonia
is a timeless tale of a lifelong friendship.
