Lesson 1: My Ántonia—Book I
Overview
Willa Cather at Jaffrey, New Hampshire, 1916
(Courtesy of Helen Cather Southwick)
(Courtesy of Helen Cather Southwick)
Published in 1918, Willa Cather’s My Ántonia is the oldest of the five novels you’ll read in this course. Cather’s novel portrays the struggle of pioneers trying to survive on the sometimes harsh Nebraska prairie of the 1870s to 1880s.
The novel’s introduction and opening chapters provide initial glimpses of several of the novel’s major characters, most notably, Ántonia Shimerda and Jim Burden, the novel’s narrator. In these opening chapters, you’ll also begin to experience the impact that nature had on the lives of immigrants who settled America’s prairies.
