Here in one authoritative volume are Willa Cather's essential masterpieces: the story collection The Troll Garden , along with the beloved novels O Pioneers! , The Song of the Lark , and My Ántonia . "Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet." Cather's remark describes her own powerfully imaginative recreation of the Nebraska frontier of her youth. The vast Great Plains, where the earth has only recently come beneath the plow and the sky is huge and open, mirrors the uniquely American ethic of her characters: their heroic aspirations and stoicism, their passion for creativity, their rebelliousness of spirit. Born in Virginia in 1873 and raised on a Nebraska ranch, Willa Cather is known for her beautifully evocative short stories and novels about the American West. Cather became the managing editor for McClure’s Magazine in 1906 and lived for forty years in New York City with her companion Edith Lewis. In 1922 Cather won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours , the story of a Western boy in World War I. In 1933 she was awarded the Prix Femina Americaine “for distinguished literary accomplishments.” She died in 1947. Photo: AKG London