ISBN: 9781596882331
First published in 1915, Song of the Lark is one of Willa Cather’s three novels known collectively as The Great Plains Trilogy, including O Pioneers! (1913) and My Ántonia (1918), also available from The Large Print Book Company. This story unfolds Thea Kronborg’s transformation from a preacher’s daughter playing piano at her father’s services into an international phenomenon. Along the way, she contends with balancing the demands of personal relationships with those of her professional development as an artist of consequence.
Thea Kronborg is the daughter of a preacher in Moonstone, Colorado, who begins her artistic career as a determined girl who loves music and doggedly practices her craft, learning from every source in her environment, from her piano teacher Mr. Wunsch, to her friend Spanish Johnny, and eventually her teachers in Chicago and Germany. Willa Cather weaves throughout Thea's story the effect of the land that nurtured her creativity, including a sojourn at the Anasazi cliff dwellings with a romantic interest, Fred Ottenburg. This is an engaging portrait of a soul marked by artistic destiny.
Willa Sibert Cather (1873–1947) was born in Virginia and moved to Nebraska when she was nine years old. She graduated from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her writing style is characterized by its vivid descriptions of the natural world, its focus on the lives of ordinary people, and its exploration of themes such as identity, memory, and the passage of time. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for One of Ours.