orig. Wilella Sibert Cather
born Dec. 7, 1873, near Winchester, Va., U.S.
died April 24, 1947, New York, N.Y.
U.S. novelist.
Cather moved with her family to Nebraska at age 9; she returned east 12 years later, eventually settling in New York. The Troll Garden (1905), her first short-story collection, contains some of her best-known work. The novels O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918), often judged her finest achievement, celebrate frontier spirit and courage. Song of the Lark (1915), Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920), and other works reflect the struggle of a talent to emerge from small-town provincialism. One of Ours (1922, Pulitzer Prize) and A Lost Lady (1923) mourn the loss of the pioneer spirit. Pioneers of earlier eras also inspired Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and Shadows on the Rock (1931).