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Willa Cather's two grandmothers, to whom she read aloud from English classics, and a storekeeping uncle who, an Oxford graduate, taught her Latin, were important aids to her education. Her first writing was for the Lincoln State Journal. After she was graduated from the University of Nebraska, Willa Cather went to Pittsburgh, became dramatic critic on the Leader. Then she tried teaching English at the Allegheny High School, wrote verse in off-hours, published a book of it (April Twilights) in 1903. Famed Editor Samuel Sidney McClure, to whom she sent her first stories, published them, gave her a job on McClure's Magazine; for four years she was managing editor. Critics paid her work attention almost from the start, but not till One of Ours won the Pulitzer Prize for 1922 was she admitted into the popular Hall of Fame. With A Lost Lady (1923) and Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) Willa Cather settled comfortably into her niche. Last June she was respectably canonized by Princeton University, which broke its long Presbyterian tradition to make her its first female recipient of a degree.* Once a mere squatter, Willa Cather is now a taxpaying, permanently-located resident on the U. S. Parnassus.
Other books: The Troll Garden, The Bohemian Girl, Alexander's Bridge, 0 Pioneers! The Song of the Lark, My Antonia, Youth and the Bright Medusa, The Professor's House.
The Book-of-the-Month Club was lucky enough to get Shadows on the Rock as its August offering.
*SHADOWS ON THE ROCK—Willa Cather—Knopf ($2.50).
*WiIla Cather also has honorary degrees from Nebraska, Michigan, Columbia universities.