Month: March 2024

Willa Cather first published My Ántonia in 1918. Along with Song of the Lark, and O Pioneers! it is part of what Cather aficionados call The Great Plains trilogy, which draws on the author’s love for her childhood homeland. This large print edition of My Ántonia features 16-point type, and cream-colored, acid-free paper, in a 6″ x 9″ format. It is our second edition, published on March 7, 2024, with expanded line spacing for improved legibility.

Recently orphaned Jim Burden travels from Virginia to Black Hawk, Nebraska to live with his grandparents. On the way there, he meets the Bohemian Shimerda family who have a hard start on the rugged terrain. Jim’s grandparents attempt to help them get on their feet and the Shimerda patriarch asks Jim to teach his daughter Ántonia how to speak English. Thus begins their lifelong friendship. Through Jim’s remembrance of Ántonia, we experience 1880s Nebraska and the richness of success that comes with putting everything one has into achieving the American Dream.

Excerpts

Jim Describes His Grandmother

She was a spare, tall woman, a little stooped, and she
was apt to carry her head thrust forward in an attitude
of attention, as if she were looking at something, or
listening to something, far away. As I grew older, I
came to believe that it was only because she was so
often thinking of things that were far away. She was
quick-footed and energetic in all her movements. Her
voice was high and rather shrill, and she often spoke
with an anxious inflection, for she was exceedingly
desirous that everything should go with due order
and decorum. Her laugh, too, was high, and perhaps
a little strident, but there was a lively intelligence in
it. She was then fifty-five years old, a strong woman,
of unusual endurance. —p. 13 of our large print edition.

Antonia in Young Adulthood

While the horses drew in the water, and nosed each
other, and then drank again, Ántonia sat down on the
windmill step and rested her head on her hand.
“You see the big prairie fire from your place last
night? I hope your grandpa ain’t lose no stacks?”
“No, we didn’t. I came to ask you something, Tony.
Grandmother wants to know if you can’t go to the
term of school that begins next week over at the sod
schoolhouse. She says there’s a good teacher, and you’d
learn a lot.”
Ántonia stood up, lifting and dropping her shoulders
as if they were stiff. “I ain’t got time to learn. I can
work like mans now. My mother can’t say no more
how Ambrosch do all and nobody to help him. I can
work as much as him. School is all right for little boys.
I help make this land one good farm.”
She clucked to her team and started for the barn.
I walked beside her, feeling vexed. Was she going to
grow up boastful like her mother, I wondered? Before
we reached the stable, I felt something tense in her
silence, and glancing up I saw that she was crying.
She turned her face from me and looked off at the red
streak of dying light, over the dark prairie. —pp. 109-110 of our large print edition

How to Order My Ántonia in Large Print

Click here to open a new window to purchase My Ántonia in large print through our online store. You may also purchase all three volumes of The Great Plains trilogy at a 30% discount by clicking here. For individual items in the trilogy, use coupon code CATHER30 to receive 30% off through April 15, 2024. We now offer free shipping via USPS media mail. You can download our Spring 2024 catalog by clicking here (a new browser window will open).

Willa Cather published O Pioneers! in 1913. It is the first of three novels that Cather aficionados refer to as The Great Plains trilogy, including Song of the Lark and My Ántonia, which we also have published in large print. These books celebrate the author’s homeland and its development by the perseverance of humble European immigrants. This is the second Large Print Book Company edition of this title. Published on March 7, 2024, it is expanded from 204 pages to 228 pages to add space between text lines. The art featured on our cover of this large print edition is a 1905 painting, L’Amour (Love), by French artist Jules Breton (1827–1906), whose other work inspired the title for Cather’s Song of the Lark.

Alexandra Bergson is the Swedish-American heroine who inherits her father’s farm near the burgeoning town of Hanover, Nebraska. Her progress contrasts with that of other women who choose different paths, especially her friend Marie, who marries a handsome but temperamental French man, but is enamored with Alexandra’s younger brother, Emil.

Excerpts from the Book

Alexandra’s Father

John Bergson had the Old-World belief that land,
in itself, is desirable. But this land was an enigma. It
was like a horse that no one knows how to break to
harness, that runs wild and kicks things to pieces. He
had an idea that no one understood how to farm it
properly, and this he often discussed with Alexandra.
Their neighbors, certainly, knew even less about
farming than he did. Many of them had never worked
on a farm until they took up their homesteads. They
had been Handwerkers at home; tailors, locksmiths,
joiners, cigar-makers, etc. Bergson himself had worked
in a shipyard.—p. 15 of our large print edition.

Alexandra’s Friend, Marie, on Her Marriage

Alexandra twirled the stick in her fingers and
laughed. “He must have looked funny!”
Marie was thoughtful. “No, he didn’t, really. It didn’t
seem out of place. He used to be awfully gay like that
when he was a young man. I guess people always get
what’s hardest for them, Alexandra.” Marie gathered
the shawl closer about her and still looked hard at the
cane. “Frank would be all right in the right place,” she
said reflectively. “He ought to have a different kind of
wife, for one thing. Do you know, Alexandra, I could
pick out exactly the right sort of woman for Frank—
now. The trouble is you almost have to marry a man
before you can find out the sort of wife he needs; and
usually it’s exactly the sort you are not. Then what are
you going to do about it?” she asked candidly….

Alexandra had never heard Marie speak so frankly
about her husband before, and she felt that it was wiser
not to encourage her. No good, she reasoned, ever came
from talking about such things…”— pp. 138-139 of our large print edition.

How to Order

Click here to open a new window to purchase O Pioneers! in large print through our online store. You can also order all three Great Plains trilogy titles at a 30% discount by clicking here. For individual items in the trilogy, use coupon code CATHER30 to receive 30% off through April 15, 2024. We offer free shipping when you choose USPS media mail. Click here to download our Spring 2024 catalog (a new browser widow will open).