Cather Studies 4 contains eighteen essays and elaborates a theme, “Willa Cather’s Canadian and Old World Connections.” Such connections are central to Cather’s art and artistry. She transported much from the Old World to the New, shaping her antecedents to tell, in new ways, the stories of Nebraska, of the American Southwest, and especially of Quebec, in Shadows on the Rock.

 

David Stouck details Cather’s numerous Canadian connections, Richard Millington treats her “anthropological” re-creation of the cultural moment of seventeenth-century Quebec, and François Palleau-Papin finds “The Hidden French in Cather’s English.” A volume of lively and informed criticism, Cather Studies 4 vividly demonstrates Cather’s artistry and her work’s deep connections to the present cultural and critical moment.

Robert Thacker is the director of the Canadian studies program at St. Lawrence University and the author of English-Canadian Literature. Michael A. Peterman is chair of the English Department at Trent University. His works include I Bless You in My Heart.

"I was heartened by the excellence of the scholarship, the extraordinary attentiveness to Cather’s texts evinced by almost all of the contributors; and a real sense that we are only now beginning to take a measure of the range and scope of her artistry. While this is inevitably a volume of most interest to Cather enthusiasts, I would not hesitate to recommend it to students at any level."—American Studies