A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays

Cather’s magazine pieces from 1892 to 1920 are gathered here in two parts. The first holds a dozen short stories, many rooted in the Nebraska prairie she grew up on: Peter Sadelack, once a violinist in Prague, now a broken homesteader whose son wants the fiddle sold; Canute Canuteson, the Norwegian of “On the Divide”; the immigrant settlers of “The Bohemian Girl”; and the small-town Baptist choir of “The Joy of Nelly Deane.” Later stories like “Ardessa” and “Her Boss” turn a dry eye on New York office life. The second part is Cather the working critic, on Mark Twain, Howells, Poe, Whitman, Henry James, Kate Chopin, Frank Norris and Stephen Crane, closing with her 1920 credo “On the Art of Fiction,” where she argues art should simplify. Readers who know only My Ántonia will find the apprenticeship here.