A contextualizing overview of the polarized critical reception of Willa Cather, one of the pre-eminent US authors of the twentieth-century.

Introduction
Willa Cather's Mercurial Position Among the Critics, 1918-1949
The Author and the Archetype: Biographical and Thematic Approaches to Cather
Critical Conversations on Gender and Sexuality
The Sociohistorical Cather: Approaches to Race, War, and the Environment
Cather in the Literary Marketplace: Authorial Criticism, Archival Studies, and Book-Historical Criticism
Afterword: "Having It Out," or Continuing the Critical Conversation