My Antonia

Introduction

My Ántonia, first published in 1918, is the third novel in what reviewers sometimes refer to as “The Prairie Trilogy” or “The Great Plains Trilogy” by celebrated American author Willa Cather (1873-1947). The other two books, O Pioneers! (1913) and The Song of the Lark (1915) also feature strong female characters from immigrant families in a Great Plains setting but are otherwise unrelated. My Ántonia is considered one of Cather’s most outstanding novels for its encapsulation of the pioneer experience on the Nebraskan frontier. Known for her novels’ powerful sense of place, Cather elevated regional literature into the mainstream and created heroic portrayals of the often scorned hard-toiling European immigrants. Cather won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for her World War I novel One of Ours (1922). Other notable books authored by Cather include A Lost Lady (1923) and Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927). This guide is based on the 1918 Houghton Mifflin edition.

Content Warning: This guide contains discussions of suicide and sexual assault that are present in the source text.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with an unnamed narrator unexpectedly encountering a childhood friend, Jim Burden, aboard a train crossing Iowa. Both the narrator and Jim now reside in New York, but they grew up in the same Nebraskan prairie town; Jim is now a lawyer for a Western railroad company.