Anthologies#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Women and Fiction |
1975 |
Buy |
| Child’s Ploy |
1984 |
Buy |
| Women on Women |
1990 |
Buy |
| Prose and Poetry of the American West |
1991 |
Buy |
| The Screaming Skull |
1994 |
Buy |
| Chloe Plus Olivia |
1994 |
Buy |
| Bodies of the Dead & Other Great American Ghost Stories |
1995 |
Buy |
| Writing New York |
1998 |
Buy |
| The Best American Short Stories of the Century |
2000 |
Buy |
| 40 Short Stories: A Portable Anthology |
2000 |
Buy |
| Great American Ghost Stories |
2008 |
Buy |
| Great Short Stories by American Women |
2012 |
Buy |
| Writers: Their Lives and Works |
2018 |
Buy |
| The Dover Anthology of Classic Christmas Stories |
2023 |
Buy |
Bison Classic Editions Reading Order#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Soul of the Indian |
1911 |
Buy |
| O Pioneers! |
1913 |
Buy |
| The Song of the Lark |
1915 |
Buy |
| Lord Grizzly |
1954 |
Buy |
| Riders of Judgment |
1957 |
Buy |
| Conquering Horse |
1959 |
Buy |
| Scarlet Plume |
1964 |
Buy |
| King of Spades |
1964 |
Buy |
| Saga of Chief Joseph |
2017 |
Buy |
| The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse |
2018 |
Buy |
| Left Handed, Son of Old Man Hat |
2018 |
Buy |
| A Cycle of the West |
2018 |
Buy |
Children’s#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Friend of My Springtime |
1974 |
Buy |
Collections#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| A Night at Greenway Court and Other Stories |
- |
Buy |
| Nanette: An Aside and Other Stories |
- |
Buy |
| Jack-A-Boy, and El Dorado |
1901 |
Buy |
| April Twilights and Other Poems |
1903 |
Buy |
| A Death in the Desert, and The Sculptor’s Funeral |
1905 |
Buy |
| The Troll Garden |
1905 |
Buy |
| The Namesake, and the Profile |
1907 |
Buy |
| A Collection of Stories, Reviews, and Essays |
1908 |
Buy |
| A Gold Slipper, and Ardessa |
1918 |
Buy |
| Youth and The Bright Medusa |
1920 |
Buy |
| The Old Beauty and Others |
1948 |
Buy |
| Five Stories |
1956 |
Buy |
| Willa Cather’s Collected Short Fiction, 1892-1912 |
1965 |
Buy |
| Collected Stories |
1970 |
Buy |
| Uncle Valentine and Other Stories |
1973 |
Buy |
| The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
1990 |
Buy |
| Stories, Poems, and Other Writings |
1992 |
Buy |
| O Pioneers! and Other Tales of the Prairie |
1999 |
Buy |
| The Troll Garden and Others |
2006 |
Buy |
| The Count of Crow’s Nest and Other Stories |
2008 |
Buy |
| The Professor’s Commencement, and the Treasure of Far Island |
2008 |
Buy |
| The Treasure of Far Island and Other Stories |
2008 |
Buy |
| A Wagner Matinee and Paul’s Case |
2008 |
Buy |
| Peter and Other Stories |
2008 |
Buy |
| Paul’s Case and Other Stories |
2012 |
Buy |
| Youth and the Bright Medusa - Scholar’s Choice Edition |
2015 |
Buy |
| Obscure Destinies |
2019 |
Buy |
| Under Far Horizons - Selected Poetry of Willa Cather |
2022 |
Buy |
Great Plains Trilogy Reading Order#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| O Pioneers! |
1913 |
Buy |
| Pioneros |
1913 |
N/A |
| The Song of the Lark |
1915 |
Buy |
| My Ántonia |
1918 |
Buy |
Non-Fiction#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Autobiography of S. S. McClure |
1914 |
Buy |
| The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science |
1919 |
Buy |
| Not Under Forty |
1936 |
Buy |
| Willa Cather on Writing |
1988 |
Buy |
Short Stories/Novellas#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Burglar’s Christmas |
- |
Buy |
| On the Divide, and Eric Hermannson’s Soul |
1900 |
Buy |
| A Death in the Desert |
1903 |
Buy |
| A Wagner Matinee |
1904 |
Buy |
| The Sculptor’s Funeral |
1905 |
Buy |
| The Enchanted Bluff |
1909 |
Buy |
| The Bohemian Girl |
1912 |
Buy |
| The Diamond Mine |
1916 |
Buy |
| A Gold Slipper |
1917 |
Buy |
| Scandal |
1919 |
Buy |
| Coming, Aphrodite! / Coming, Eden Bower! |
1920 |
Buy |
| Paul’s Case |
1920 |
Buy |
| Neighbour Rosicky |
1932 |
Buy |
| Ardessa |
2004 |
Buy |
| El Dorado |
2004 |
Buy |
Standalone Novels#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Alexander’s Bridge |
1912 |
Buy |
| One of Ours |
1922 |
Buy |
| A Lost Lady |
1923 |
Buy |
| The Professor’s House |
1925 |
Buy |
| My Mortal Enemy |
1926 |
Buy |
| Death Comes for the Archbishop |
1927 |
Buy |
| Shadows on the Rock |
1931 |
Buy |
| Lucy Gayheart |
1935 |
Buy |
| Sapphira and the Slave Girl |
1940 |
Buy |
Willa Cather was born in Virginia in 1873 and moved to Nebraska as a child. The open prairie and immigrant communities of her youth became the raw material for her best fiction. After working as a journalist and editor in Pittsburgh and New York, she published her first novel, Alexander’s Bridge, in 1912. The books that followed, especially O Pioneers! and My Antonia, drew on her memories of Nebraska farm life and earned her a lasting place in American letters.
Cather’s writing career spanned nearly three decades, producing nine standalone novels, the Great Plains Trilogy, and dozens of short stories and collections. Her later novels shifted settings, from the American Southwest in Death Comes for the Archbishop to seventeenth-century Quebec in Shadows on the Rock, but her attention to place and character remained constant. Many of her short stories and collections have been reissued by multiple publishers over the years, and her work also appears in numerous multi-author anthologies.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many books has Willa Cather written?
Willa Cather has written 87 books across eight series.
What was Willa Cather's first book?
Willa Cather’s first book is On the Divide, and Eric Hermannson’s Soul, published in 1900.
What is Willa Cather's most famous work?
Willa Cather’s most famous works include the Great Plains Trilogy (O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Antonia) and Death Comes for the Archbishop. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for One of Ours, a novel about a young Nebraska man who finds purpose as a soldier in World War I. Her fiction is widely studied in American literature courses and remains in print more than a century after publication.