In 1940 Wallace Stevens wrote of Willa Cather, "She takes such pains to conceal her sophistication that it is easy to miss her quality," but "we have nothing better than she is." Now, almost fifty'years later, I'm reading her and 1 want to say to Stevens: The sophistication is transparent, and not only is she the best we have, she's what we're all about. The open style, the unpretentious high-mindedness, the penetrating interest in the idea of individuathan, all seem richly American to me---and above all, the understanding in her that the struggle to become takes place not "out there" in the world, but "in here" in what we call intimate relations.

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One of America"s greatest women writers, Wilta Cather established her talent and her reputation with this extraordinary novel--the first of her books set on the Nebraska frontier. A tale of the prairie land encountered by America"s Swedish, Czech, Bohemian and French immigrants, as well as a story of how the land challenged them, changed them, and, in some cases, defeated them, Cather"s novel is a uniquely American epic.

Alexandra Bergson, a young Swedish immigrant girl who inherits her father"s farm and must transform it from raw prairie into a prosperous enterprise, is the first of Cather"s great heroines--all of them women of strong will and even stronger desire to overcome adversity and succeed. But the wild land itself is an equally important character in Cather"s books, and her descriptions of it are so evocative, lush. and moving that they provoked writer Rebecca West to say of her: "The most sensuous of writers. Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us."

Introduction by Vivian Gornick

   PART I

The Wild Land

   PART II

Neighboring Fields

   PART III

Winter Memories

   PART IV

The White Mulberry Tree

   PART V

Alexandra