This Norton Critical Edition brings to life--through Cather's words, and
through the words and images of others--the uniquely American frontier
experience. In inscribing a copy of O Pioneers! for a childhood
friend, Cather wrote, "In this one I hit the home pasture..." "Contexts
and Backgrounds" includes a rich selection of autobiographical and
biographical remembrances (including three interviews with Cather),
literary contexts (by Cather and her contemporaries, Henry James and
Sarah Orne Jewett), and writings on the American West (including
selected letters that paint a picture of one family's life on the
Nebraska prairie). "Criticism" provides seven contemporary reviews and
eight modern critical interpretations by David Stouck, John J. Murphy,
C. Susan Wiesenthal, Marilee Lindemann, Melissa Ryan, Guy Reynolds, and
Sharon O'Brien.