Born into poverty in a small desert town in the American Midwest, Thea Kronborg is one of seven children. But Thea is exceptional, a fact recognized by a discerning few, including Ray Kennedy, who longs to marry her but whose fate it is to set her free. With her rugged will and pioneer spirit, Thea carves her way from Moonstone, Colorado to Chicago, from Dresden to New York, culminating in a triumphant debut at the Metropolitan Opera. Thea has become...

MY ANTONIA is the wistful tale of an immigrant girl from Bohemia, who has settled in Nebraska. Narrated by Antonia's childhood friend Jim Burden, the novel draws heavily upon Willa Cather's own formative years, as well as, through the persona of Jim, Cather's experience of New York, where she worked as Editor of the MCCLURE magazine. MY ANTONIA is the third in a sequence of Cather's works which deal with immigrant settlers in the USA. Writing as a...

One January day, many years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away. A mist of fine snowflakes was curling and eddying about the cluster of low drab buildings huddled on the gray prairie, under a gray sky. The dwelling-houses were set about haphazard on the tough prairie sod; some of them looked as if they had been moved in overnight, and others as if they were straying off by themselves,...