Willa Cather was born in Back Creek Valley, Virginia, on 7 December 1873, the first child of Charles Cather and Mary Virginia Boak Cather. In 1883, when Cather was nine, the family relocated to Nebraska. In 1890, Cather graduated from high school, moved to Lincoln, and enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. In 1893 she began working as the theater and drama critic for the Nebraska State Journal and the Lincoln Courier . While attending classes she wrote for the student newspaper, The Hesperian, and became the managing editor in 1893. She graduated from the University in 1895.
Cather wrote short stories, essays, and novels that focused on her Nebraska experience, her early years in Virginia, her life in New York and Pittsburgh, and her travels to New Mexico, Canada, and Europe. Her novels include Alexander's Bridge (1912), O Pioneers ! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), My Antonia (1918), A Lost Lady (1923), One of Ours (1922), The Professor's House (1925), My Mortal Enemy (1926), Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), Shadows on the Rock (1931), Lucy Gayheart (1935), and Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940). Her short story collections include The Troll Garden (1905), Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920) and Obscure Destinies (1932).
For more biographical information on Cather, please visit The Willa Cather Archive
From the guide to the Willa Cather, Collected Materials, 1901-1989
