Synopsis
The story of Marian Forrester, a wife and then a widow in a small Nebraska town, and Niel Herbert, the narrator, who has been devoted to her since he was a child, is one of Cather's lesser-known novels, but considered by many to be one of her best. Marian is a refined and civilizing presence in the rough town to which her marriage to a rich man takes her, but after a devastating love affair, followed by her husband's death and the loss of her money, she makes changes in her life that, at first, Niel fails to understand. It's only years later that he is able to see that her life was, in fact, a work of art with its own logic--that the woman he revered but considered "lost" was in fact the mistress of her fate, and a woman he can continue to admire.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-09-01 | | Series: | Willa Cather Scholarly Edition Series | | Editor: | Charles W. Mignon, Frederick M. Link | | Edition Description: | Illustrated |
| Size | | Length: | 371 pages | | Height: | 9.5 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 27.2 oz |
Publisher's Note
First published in 1923, A Lost Lady is one of Willa Cather's classic novels about life on the Great Plains. It harkens back to Nebraska's early history and contrasts those days with an unsentimental portrait of the materialistic world that supplanted the frontier. In her subtle portrait of Marian Forrester, whose life unfolds in the midst of this disquieting transition, Cather created one of her most memorable and finely drawn characters. The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition of A Lost Lady is edited according to standards set by the Committee for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association. A wide range of biographical, historical, and textual information about the novel is presented. A selection of archival photographs illuminates the connection between the photographs illuminates the connection between the novel and the people and places from Cather's formative years in Nebraska.
Industry Reviews
"The book stands, from the point of view of art, as her most notable performance up to the present. It is all but faultless in structure; it possesses evident beauty of design and proportion...At her best she has created characters of distinction and significance..."
North American Review - Lloyd Morris
"...a charming sketch performed with exceptional skill. Willa Cather is...one of the only writers who has been able to bring any real distinction to the life of the Middle West."
Book Text - Edmund Wilson
"She has had the strength to give herself to her natural environment, and in 'A Lost Lady' she has actually succeeded in transforming her material into the universal forms of art--no easy conquest."
T.K. Whipple (12/08/1923)
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