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Shadows on the Rock

Name: Shadows on the Rock
Author: Willa Cather
ISBN: 9780896214132

by Willa Cather

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Overview

Shadows on the Rock, written after Willa Cather discovered Quebec City during an unplanned stay in 1928, is the second of her "Catholic" historical novels and reflects her fascination with finding a little piece of France in eastern Canada. Set in the late seventeenth century, the novel centers on the activities of the widowed apothecary Euclide Auclair and his young daughter, Cecile. To Auclair's house and shop come trappers, missionaries, craftsmen, the indigent—those seeking cures, a taste of France, or liberation from the corruptions caused there by the excesses of the French court. Set against these fictional characters, historical personages such as Bishop Laval, Count Frontenac, and others contend in the political life of the vast colony. This edition, which is approved by the Modern Language Association, will be of special importance to Cather scholars. Not only is Cather's mining of historical sources explored in extensive explanatory notes, but a recently discovered reworked draft of the novel has been incorporated into the textual analysis. There is also a generous illustration section with maps of the setting.

Set at the end of the 17th century, this novel describes the quiet, isolated life of Cecile Auclair and her father, the town apothecary.

About the Author, Willa Cather

John J. Murphy is a professor of English at Brigham Young University, author of My Antonia: The Road Home, and editor of Critical Essays on Willa Cather. David Stouck, a professor of English at Simon Fraser University, is the author of Willa Cather's Imagination and As for Sinclair Ross: A Biography. Frederick M. Link is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and textual editor of Cather's Obscure Destinies and The Professor's House.

Biography

Wilella Sibert Cather was born on December 7, 1873, in the small Virginia farming community of Winchester. When she was ten years old, her parents moved the family to the prairies of Nebraska, where her father opened a farm mortgage and insurance business. Home-schooled before enrolling in the local high school, Cather had a mind of her own, changing her given name to Willa and adopting a variation of her grandmother's maiden name, Seibert, as her middle name.

During Cather's studies at the University of Nebraska, she worked as a drama critic to support herself and published her first piece of short fiction, "Peter," in a Boston magazine. After graduation, her love of music and intellectual pursuits inspired her to move to Pittsburgh, where she edited the family magazine Home Monthly, wrote theater criticism for the Pittsburgh Daily Leader, and taught English and Latin in local high schools. Cather's big break came with the publication of her first short story collection, The Troll Garden (1905). The following year she moved to New York City to work for McClure's Magazine as a writer and eventually the magazine's managing editor.

Considered one of the great figures of early-twentieth-century American literature, Willa Cather derived much of her inspiration from the American Midwest, which she considered her home. Never married, she cherished her many friendships, some of which she had maintained since childhood. Her intimate coterie of women writers and artists motivated Cather to produce some of her best work. Sarah Orne Jewett, a successful author from Maine whom Cather had met during her McClure's years, inspired her to devote herself full-time to creating literature and to write about her childhood, which she did in several novels of the prairies. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for her novel about World War I, called One of Ours.

She won many other awards, including a gold medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Prix Femina Americaine. On April 24, 1947, two years after publishing her last novel, Willa Cather died in New York City of a cerebral hemorrhage. Among Cather's other accomplishments were honorary doctorate degrees from Columbia, Princeton, and Yale Universities.

Author biography from the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of O, Pioneers!.