The Troll Garden: Short Stories

by Willa Cather, James Woodress (Introduction)

This collection of Willa Cather stories—her first book of fiction and the capstone of her early career—is as relevant today as at the time of its initial publication. As different and individually distinguished as the seven stories may be, they share as their subject the role and status of the artist in American society. The passions, ambitions, and pretensions, the cant and the pathos of the art world, artists, pseudo-artists, aficionados, and dilettantes—all are amply represented here in the midst of their foibles, grand affairs, and failures, drawn with great style and subtlety by a writer gathering her formidable powers. With the psychological precision of her early master Henry James and the practical wisdom and wit of her contemporary Edith Wharton, Cather shows us innocents seduced, sophisticates undone, marriages sundered, idealism compromised, and the rare soul uplifted by art.  

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Literature, American, Literary Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1905

About the author

Wilella Sibert Cather was born in Back Creek Valley (Gore), Virginia, in December 7, 1873.

She grew up in Virginia and Nebraska. She then attended the University of Nebraska, initially planning to become a physician, but after writing an article for the Nebraska State Journal, she became a regular contributor to this journal. Because of this, she changed her major and graduated with a bachelor's degree in English.

After graduation in 1894, she worked in Pittsburgh as writer for various publications and as a school teacher for approximately 13 years, thereafter moving to New York City for the remainder of her life.

Her novels on frontier life brought her to national recognition. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, 'One of Ours' (1922), set during World War I. She travelled widely and often spent summers in New Brunswick, Canada. In later life, she experienced much negative criticism for her conservative politics and became reclusive, burning some of her letters and personal papers, including her last manuscript.

She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943. In 1944, Cather received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, an award given once a decade for an author's total accomplishments.

She died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 73 in New York City.

Reviews

[Lee Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Willa Cather's first book, a collection of short stories, all loosely tied to people who love the arts. A wealthy woman who runs a salon/artist colony is excoriated in print by one of her former protegees, and her "why did HE marry HER" husband proves he loves her by hiding the news from her; a music-loving Bostonian, who's spent the last 30 years as a farm wife on the Nebraska prairie, returns to her hometown and is devastated by going to a performance of Wagner pieces; yet another wealthy woman, who hosted a notorious lothario opera tenor in her summer house for a month, has a sex dream about him after he's left, and realizes to her shame that she wants/loves him. All these stories are great. I recommend this one.

[Cynthia Egbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short story collection and so I was automatically drawn to it. Don't let the 84 pages fool you, these are dense and well-written stories. They were also all stories that centered around the arts and as a speech/drama person I appreciated that element as well. Really I wish I could give 3.5 stars but I had to round up or down and I was pulled down by the collection, the stories were all so heartbreaking and that affects my ratings right now. That being said, Cather wins for one of the best descriptions of death, "..but when they came back the madness of art was over for Katherine."

[Mommalibrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not all about the west.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Troll Garden: Short Stories" is her earliest work of collected fiction. (She'd previously written come poetry). I'm a huge Willa Cather fan. Growing up, my favorite book was "My Antonia." I'm from Nebraska and they filmed the made-for-TV movie of "My Antonia" right across the street from my house!

I've read a number of her books and I've been a huge fan of all of them but now I'm setting about the task of filling in any gaps that I've missed. That brings us to "The Troll Garden: Short Stories." This collection is a delight. The only misfire (for me) was the first story: Flavia and her Artists. Cather was going for a more New York/bohemian feel with this one and just didn't work. The rest of the stories primarily dealt with the prairie (or lack there of).

If you've a fan of her work, hunt down this little gem. It's a quick read and quite indicative of works to come.

[Edward Champion · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an unbelievably bland and toothless collection of stories written by a smug and imperious rube. The only reason I read this was because I'm working on an essay on DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP, but I simply cannot get into Cather at all. Here's a sample sentence (pulled from "Paul's Case"):

"The young man was relating how his chief, now cruising in the Mediterranean, kept in touch with all the details of the business, arranging his office hours on his yacht just as though he were home, and 'knocking off work enough to keep two stenographers busy.'"

Note the redundancies here ("cruising in the Mediterranean" and "arranging his office hours on his yacht"). Even a prolix motherfucker like me recognizes that this sentence is too long, presumably extended for the word rate.

Or how about this overwritten nonsense from "The Sculptor's Funeral":

"The grating sound made by the casket, as it was drawn from the hearse, was answered by a scream from the house; the front door was wrenched open, and a tall, corpulent woman rushed out bareheaded into the snow and flung herself upon the coffin, shrieking: 'My boy, my boy! And this is how you've come home to me!'"

I'm forgiving of melodrama in fiction, but come on! The sequence of events here is all wrong. "Drawn from the hearse"? Where else would the casket come from. Some giant descending from the heavens? The attempt here to create poignant emotion falls flat with this overwrought dialogue.

I've really tried to get into Willa Cather, but I truly despise her writing. I asked three writer friends of mine (all women and people you probably know) if they stumped for Cather. And they all could not stand her. Why is this Nebraska ingrate canonized? Jesus Christ.

[Abbey Stellingwerff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection of short stories by a woman that I'd like to know more about. Every story in this book has to do with artists and disillusionment but not in a way that made me feel sad and unsatisfied. Willa Cather explores, as the back cover of the book says, "the devastated, romantic dreams that haunt her characters." She does so in unique and beautiful prose. My favorite stories were "The Garden Lodge" and "'A Death in the Desert.'" I will have to mull over these stories and read them again and again in the future.

[peg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have started a reading project of works by Willa Cather, having only read My Antonia years ago. I was under the impression that her characters were mainly country people from the midwestern plains and was pleasantly surprised that this book of her early stories was filled with artists, sophisticates and denizens of Paris, New York and London. It will be interesting to see what characters appear in her next book of short stories, YOUTH AND THE BRIGHT MEDUSA.

[Ygraine]

picked up to read paul's case but ended up working my way through the rest of the collection first -- my memory of the only cather novel i've read is v blurry and shapeless, due to having been read in one of my especially dissociative eras, so i really enjoyed seeing her work in smaller, tighter spaces, these v finely tuned portraits ? also paul's case was SO much more distressing than i anticipated, even knowing the rough strokes of it, and now i have a tummy ache.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Troll Garden” by Willa Cather contains some of her earliest writing. She had published a collection of poetry titled “April Twilights” a couple of years earlier, and there are a couple of earlier short stories which are not included in this collection, but other than that this is the earliest example of her writing. “The Troll Garden” includes seven stories which deal with the subject of art, in some way or another.

“Flavia and Her Artists” – This story was originally published in this collection. Flavia likes to put herself at the center of society by inviting noteworthy people to her house parties, though her husband, Arthur, doesn’t fit in with them. In this case, it is a group which consists of several noteworthy people, including M. Roux, a novelist. It also includes Imogen Willard, the narrator of the story, who remembers Flavia’s husband from her childhood. M. Roux leaves much earlier than the other guests, and when an article he writes satirizes Flavia mercilessly, Imogen tries to keep it from Arthur, but he reads it and then destroys it so that Flavia will not read it. The other guests are aware of it though, and when the subject of M. Roux comes up, Imogen believes that she notices a general agreement with what he had done. Arthur does not put up with their falseness though, and does to M. Roux in front of the guests what M. Roux had done to Flavia. When many of the guests decide to leave, Flavia mistakenly believes that it is her husband who has acted improperly.

“The Sculptor’s Funeral” – This story was originally published in McClure’s Magazine in January of 1905. When Harvey Merrick’s body returns for burial to the small town in Kansas where he grew up, the locals make fun of him, even though he was a famed sculptor. Only two people appear to truly grieve the loss, his student Henry Steavens, and his old friend, Jim Laird, who finally hears enough of the other’s attacks on Harvey, and he lets them know exactly how much better Harvey was than any of them.

“’A Death in the Desert’” – This story was originally published in “Scribner’s” in January of 1903. This story centers on Everett Hilgarde, a man who is often mistaken for his brother Adriance, who is a famous composer. On a trip to Wyoming, he is surprised to see Katharine Gaylord, a singer who used to work with his brother, and who he knew and admired when he was much younger. They start to meet regularly, and he learns that she is fatally ill. He lets Adriance know of her situation, and his brother sends her a letter and his most recent composition.

“The Garden Lodge” – Caronline Noble used to be a musician, and recently entertained a famous tenor, Raymond d’Esquerre. His visit has reminded her of her days when she was a musician, and less practical. She at first is opposed to her husband wanting to tear down the garden lodge where she spent time with Raymond d’Esquerre, but after reflection and a night’s sleep, she returns to the more practical world which has become her life after music.

“The Marriage of Phaedra” – The narrator, MacMaster, sets out to write the biography of Hugh Treffinger, a painter who has just passed away. He becomes involved in the dealing with his unfinished work, “The Marriage of Phaedra”. Hugh Treffinger’s valet and assistant, James, believes that Hugh did not want it to be sold, as it was unfinished, but an art dealer from Melbourne has offered Hugh’s wife a lot of money for it.

“A Wagner Matinee” – First published in “Everybody’s Magazine” in February of 1904, this story is a wonderful story about a young man in Boston (Clark) who learns that his aunt from Nebraska is coming to visit. His aunt Georgiana lived in Boston a long time ago, and she loved music, so he arranges to take her to a concert. When she arrives, she is much changed and he is worried about how she will react to the event, as she seems to have lost all of what she once was. As the concert goes on, he notices more and more how it seems to be reaching her. A very touching story, and one of my favourites in this collection.

“Paul’s Case” – This story was first published in McClure’s Magazine in May of 1905. This story starts in Pittsburgh, and opens with Paul meeting with the Principal of his school and the teachers that had him suspended. Paul’s troubles don’t end there, as he is drawn to the performing arts, ushering at Carnegie Hall, but his father isn’t pleased with Paul’s attitude, so he puts him to work at his company, while forcing him to give up his job at Carnegie Hall. Paul steals and runs away to New York to escape the life he hates. He watches the papers for signs that they know where he is, and when he sees them he is afraid of what they will do. He is resolved in what to do, and carries out his plan. This is an interesting story, and the comparison between flowers in winter and Paul’s life is a good one.

“The Troll Garden” is a relatively short collection of just seven stories, but is a very good collection, brought together by a common theme of the arts. Cather is best known for her pioneer type stories, and there is a taste of that in a few of the stories here, but for the most part these stories don’t fit that particular style. A very good start to her career in literature.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing exploration and exposition of the almost-artistic soul. I quite identify with the characters in these stories, perhaps more than I care to admit publicly. I know so many persons who are almost artists, wannabe artists, not quite artists, and also actual artists who just can't quite seem to. How could someone as genuinely successful in her art as Cather have depicted our state so accurately? There is a reason she is known to be great among authors.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.79⭐

Flavia and Her Artists 3.5⭐
The Sculptor's Funeral 4⭐
The Garden Lodge 3⭐
"A Death in the Desert" 4.5⭐
The Marriage of Phaedra 3⭐
A Wagner Matinee 5⭐
Paul's Case 3.5⭐

[Roger Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Illustrative of one of Cather's major strains in her fiction, art and artists. Some of the writing is florid reflecting the influence of Henry James, but the shift to what is best in her later writing is evident in "Paul's Case."

[Jim Leckband · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a nice surprise to find that "The Troll Garden" was a short story collection concentrated around somewhat loosely defined theme. All of the stories involved an interaction with artists. Evidently Cather had quite an interest in the calling and self-identification of the artist as she grew up in the Plains and it seems she was determined to escape the prairie life and become a writer.

The stories are very well written for a young writer, with hints of Henry James. The variety of the settings and plots makes the book seem bigger in scope than it might otherwise be. As I said, every story involves the interaction between artists and society - A clueless patron and her somewhat vulturistic artists, a sculptor's body comes home to the prairie and we learn what he escaped from, an accompanist finds out whether she is love with the sentimental trappings of art or with art itself, a famous painter dies and his unfinished painting gets caught up in social class warfare and finally, a young urchin is seduced by the theater and misunderstands what "character" in real life and in the theater is all about.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This first collection of Cather's fiction is very hit-or-miss---but the hits happen to be unforgettable. "The Sculptor's Funeral," "Paul's Case," "A Wagner Matinee," and "A Death in the Desert" are the highlights, and each story centers on the pain and remorse of the "unlived life," especially for those who wish to be artists or to live amongst artists. Although Cather is known as a writer of the Great Plains, these stories take place in a variety of locales, including Wyoming, Pittsburgh, and New York. Each story also has a tinge of Naturalism. How do we strive for a certain life when the circumstances of our birth or the social pressures surrounding us stand in the way of our ideal selves? In answer to this question, Cather gives us hard truths that don't offer much hope. The only solace for the alienated individual seems to be art as an intellectual and emotional escape--but even that remains a fleeting refuge, at best.

[Wendy Welch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books where I desperately wish I could have taken a writing class from the author. How can she take emotions and attitudes that subtle, that quiet in life lived day-by-day, and make them stand out so well without writing in an overblown, hyperbolic way? The stories are as quiet as the moments she teases out, and yet they twist your way of seeing the world into knots and make you ask big questions. My Antonia is a bigger version of this kind of writing, and most of us could manage with 30,000 words or so to get to the point eventually, but Cather can haul out the undercurrents and make you re-evaluate emotions in a SHORT STORY! That's amazing writing.

[Ronald Christ · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first story, "Flavia and Her Artists," is a fine story, exceptionally sophisticated in technique and observation—not what one thinks of as typical Cather. The allusive framework of Alice in Wonderland works beautifully.

[Laurel Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poignant stories about arts and artists and those who love them and those who don't. One of my high-school teachers told me that Willa Cather was America's finest writer of short stories. I believe he was right.

[Poetreehugger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is why I collect, and read, old books, this kind of writing. Willa Cather, writing over a hundred years ago, is an accomplished writer, skillful in rich imagery which vividly depicts the settings, the characters and their thoughts and actions. The reader is transported skillfully, almost effortlessly it seems, to somewhere else, a different place or time, or a different set of characters than one has ever met before.
P. 82: “There were no lights in the room, only the wood fire which glowed upon the hard feature of the bronze Dante, like the reflection of purgatorial flames, and threw long black shadows about us; beyond us it scarcely penetrated the gloom at all. Adriance sat staring at the fire with the weariness of all his life in his eyes…”
P. 112, where the narrator has taken to the symphony his aged, culturally deprived aunt, a former urban music teacher and music lover who had eloped at a young age to live a hard life pioneering, building a farm, raising a large family in a remote and isolated setting: “…With the frenzy of the Venusberg theme and it’s ripping of strings, there came to me an overwhelming sense of the waste and wear we are so powerless to combat; and I saw again the tall, naked house on the prairie, black and grim as a wooden fortress…The world there was the flat world of the ancients; to the east, a cornfield that stretched to daybreak; to the west, a corral that reached to sunset; between, the conquests of peace, dearer bought than those of war.” One pictures the daily grind of continual labour in building a life for oneself and one’s family, a moment by moment laying down of one’s life, as opposed to the instantaneousness of the giving up of one’s life in wartime.
Many passages made me lay the book aside for a few minutes just to sit and think.
Willa Cather grew up in the hardworking time when children, especially daughters, were educated at home if at all, learning Greek and Latin from her grandmothers. It was a time when people educated themselves by reading, books, magazines, and newspapers. And maybe some people still do. But many people will say of their childhood now, “we watched movies, we played computer games”.

[Andy Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of early short stories by Willa Cather was first published in 1905, after that Cather largely turned her attention to novels including her masterpieces " My Antonia" and "O Pioneers."
Most of the stories are set in the East, not the frontier Midwest that inspired Cather to her best. And the Eastern stories disappoint.
For example,"Flavia and Her Artists" tells of a woman who hosts artists and writers at her country estate; her attempts to create this artistic and intellectual salon are undercut by their condescending attitudes as they aggressively take advantage of her generosity. The whole thing became tiresome.
But there is one story that foreshadows Cather's later genius in writing of the landscapes and people of the rural Midwest. "The Sculptor's Garden" starts with this:
"A group of the townspeople stood on the station siding of a little Kansas town, waiting the coming of the night train which was already twenty minutes overdue. The snow had fallen thick over everything; in the pale starlight the line of bluffs across the wide, white meadows south of the town made soft, smoke-coloured curves against the clear sky. The men on the siding stood first on one foot and then on the other, their hands thrust deep into their trousers pockets, their overcoats open, their shoulders screwed up with the cold; and they glanced from time to time toward the southeast, where the railroad track wound along the river shore."
The story continues this beginning momentum. The train is carrying the body of a successful sculptor who grew up in the town, the story continues with townspeople making snide comments about the sculptor's life back east. Finally the sculptor's boyhood friend who had also left town but returned to practice law rebukes them with a lecture about small mindedness attitudes wanting to tear down anyone striving to be creative, to be different or anyone wanting to grow beyond the town.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This first collection of short stories by one of my all-time favorite writers was published in 1905 when she was in her early 30s. Here are seven absolutely perfect slices of life, portraits of characters who are mostly not artists themselves, but are enamored with art and the people who make it.
Some of them, like Flavia in "Flavia and Her Artists," or Paul in "Paul's Case," are far more interested in the milieu of artists than in the actual work they accomplish. Others, such as Steavens who attends "The Sculptor's Funeral" or MacMaster in "The Marriage of Phaedra," or most especially Aunt Georgiana in "A Wagner Matinee" are profoundly affected by art, in ways which may or may not be wound up with the people who created it.
The latter story is one of the single greatest things I've ever read - it certainly speaks to me as a lifetime music lover, even though I've never experienced any live Wagner performances. It also contains the following breathtaking sentence: "One lost the contour of faces and figures - indeed, any effect of line whatever - and there was only the color of bodices past counting, the shimmer of fabrics soft and firm, silky and sheer: red, mauve, pink, blue, lilac, purple, ecru, rose, yellow, cream, and white, all the colors that an impressionist finds in a sunlit landscape, with here and there the dead shadow of a frock coat."

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d never heard of Willa Cather, but her books were on a list of “Great American writers” I’d found somewhere online, and critics have called her “a novelist of the frontier and pioneer experience”. Although that’s not one of my favourite topics, I enjoy good literature, so I thought I’d give her a go. Published in 1905, this is her first book of fiction, a collection of seven short stories famous enough to have separate articles about each of them on Wikipedia. Although they are well-written, they don’t focus on the frontier at all, examining instead the minutiae of upper-middle-class society as her characters visit country estates, attend funerals, mix with artists, and engage in various western cultural traditions such as Shakespeare and classical music in various midwestern locations as well as New York and Boston. Full of tight descriptions verging on a comedy of manners, the stories also highlight class distinctions, pathos and cover death more than once. I’m not quite sure what to make of them as I was alternately fascinated and bored with her Victorian-style prose, and the pioneer experience, which I was expecting, was noticeably absent. I may try one of her novels and see how that goes.

[Abbie Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found Cather’s first volume of short stories largely forgettable excepting “A Death in the Desert” and “Paul’s Case”(which are both very well written, though not quite up to par with her long-form fiction).

Also somewhat surprising is the distinct sense of distaste for the midwestern towns of her childhood and a pervasive feeling of standing apart, experiences obviously softened by time in her later work.

[Erika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories were so engaging and drew me in, and I had such a hard time concentrating on some others! Definitely a theme of striving for the arts and feeling an absence when music and art is not available. I have to say I have enjoyed other stories by her more than most of these, but still glad I read them. Also… most were so SAD…

[Ryan Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a delight! I was only familiar with Cather’s midwestern novels, so I wasn’t expecting the biting East Coast social satire in these stories. Each one was perfectly paced and self-contained. There almost seemed to be a bit of poking fun at the face in the mirror going on here too. Art that takes itself too seriously runs the risk of becoming parody.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed all the stories. They are little laboratories for Cather's later writing, and extremely expressive of her view of artist v. provincial society. The only one I would want to reread is A Wagner Matinee. It stung me. It showed the cost of love and sacrifice and the power of art.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened on Libravox.org which combined it with Youth and the Bright Medusa
Excellent story telling (as anyone who has read Willa Cather already knows)
Pace a bit slow at the beginning of each story, then, spell-binding!

[Pilar Hanes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I’d never heard of Willa Cather before but these short stories were so so beautiful. Beautiful prose and themes all around. Absolutely obsessed with how she describes art and women and my god especially the Garden Lodge that was so touching to me !!!!!

[Van Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great short stories. Willa Cather is an omaha author, in fact I got this book at the Willa cather library down the road while they were celebrating her 150th anniversary! Recommend for a quick witty read.

[Ted Savage · Rating 4 out of 5]

I especially liked ‘A Wagner Matinee’ and ‘Paul’s Case’. The ending to Paul’s Case was disturbing. These were sophisticated storylines that should please artists and non-artists alike. I felt each story was progressively better than the previous.

[Gage Hoefer · Rating 4 out of 5]

My two favorites were “A Wagner Matinee” and “Paul’s Case”