Collected Stories

by Willa Cather

The most complete collection available of Willa Cather's remarkable short fiction, Collected Stories brings together all the stories published in book form during her lifetime along with two additional volumes compiled after her death.

These nineteen stories resonate with all the great themes that Cather staked out like tracts of fertile land: the plight of people hungry for beauty in a country that has no room for it; the mysterious arc of human lives; and the ways the American frontier transformed the strangers who came to it, turning them imperceptibly into Americans. In these fictions, Cather displays her vast moral vision, her unerring sense of place, and her ability to find the one detail or episode that makes a closed life open wide in a single exhilarating moment.

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

493 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1970

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

[Diane Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

My three stars for a collection of Willa Cather short stories leaves me feeling a bit guilty. The reason is simple. It just wasn't consistently wonderful. Anything with a setting in the Midwest; Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico; they were all imbued with that magical aura that belongs to her beloved classics. Her love for the simple people and the landscapes just leaped off the page. When the setting moved to New York or Europe, something was lost. Her characters weren't really very good people at all. They were too concerned with their "art", with getting ahead, with their position in society.

Maybe I'm unreasonable in thinking this way, because there are some excellent stories in this collection. I'm glad I read them all, but I'll stick with her prairie settings in the future. That is obviously where her heart lay.

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cather wrote numerous stories published in various magazines, and 19 of them were released in five different collections, two posthumous. This collection includes those 19 and an essay by George N. Kates that was included in the last story collection published in 1956.

Cather was a dynamic author who reveals here much more complexity than her novels indicate. Beginning in a Henry James‘s style, she quickly cultivated her own voice, tying to various experiences in her life and imagination. I liked her novels better, but I love what this collection reveals. So 5 stars.

I have reviewed all the stories in two of my LibraryThing threads. So I won't revisit them here. Below is a list with links to all these posts on LibraryThing.com.

From The Troll Garden: Short Stories (1905)
• Flavia and Her Artists
• The Garden Lodge
• The Marriage of Phaedra
https://www.librarything.com/topic/32...

Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920)
• Coming, Aphrodite
https://www.librarything.com/topic/32...
• The Diamond Mine
• A Gold Slipper
https://www.librarything.com/topic/32...
• Scandal
• Paul's Case
• A Wagner Matinée
https://www.librarything.com/topic/32...
• The Sculptor's Funeral
• “A Death in the Desert”
https://www.librarything.com/topic/32...

Obscure Destinies (1932)
• Neighbour Rosicky
https://www.librarything.com/topic/32...
• Old Mrs. Harris
• Two Friends
https://www.librarything.com/topic/33...

The Old Beauty, and others (1948)
• The Old Beauty
• The Best Years
• Before Breakfast
https://www.librarything.com/topic/33...

Five Stories (1956)
• The Enchanted Bluff
• Tom Outland's Story
https://www.librarything.com/topic/33...
• “Willa Cather's Unfinished Avignon Story," an article by [[George N. Kates]].
https://www.librarything.com/topic/33...

-----------------------------------------------

16. Collected Stories by Willa Cather
published: 1992
format: 493-page paperback
acquired: April 2020
read: Jan 25 – Apr 29
time reading: 21:56, 2.7 mpp
rating: 5
locations: New York, London, Pittsburg, Boston, Kansas, Wyoming, Nebraska, France, Nova Scotia, New Mexico...
about the author: born near Winchester, VA, later raised in Red Cloud, NE. December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a regular reader of short stories and as much as I love Willa Cather's writing, it was hard for me to read through this collection when I first picked it up. One of the things I've enjoyed about being a book blogger is joining and/or creating reading challenges. A public declaration of intention along with a reading schedule can usually motivate me to keep focused and avoid all the shiny objects that pull my attention (namely, the million other books I want to read).

So, I created a reading project focused on Cather's short stories, starting with this book. Some friends and I read one story a month from this collection. It took twenty months and was well worth the time investment. Doing a slow read also gave me/us more time to ponder each story before rushing on to the next one.

I had read some of these stories in the past, like "Paul's Case," which will always be a favorite. One of the standout stories for me is "Coming, Aphrodite!" It's set in NYC's Greenwich Village in the late 19th century and shows a slice of what living there was like for the artists that made the neighborhood such a beacon for creatives for generations to come. The story revolves around a relationship between a singer and a painter who are neighbors. There's also a fabulous scene on Coney Island. Just writing about it makes me want to re-read it.

Reading this book was Phase One of the Willa Cather Short Story Project. Here's the main link for this reading project where you can read the reminder post and the response post for each story:

http://bit.ly/WillaCatherShortStoryPr...

Phase Two of this project will begin in January 2021.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this collection of Willa Cather short stories, one per month since March 2019. This is probably the best way for me to read short stories, as I am not a fan of the genre. This was such a great collection and reading along with Chris Wolak of The Book Cougars providing background and context made this an enjoyable project. On to Phase II of the Willa Cather project!!

[Robin Gustafson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed participating in Phase I of Chris Wolak's Willa Cather Short Story Project, https://chriswolak.com/the-willa-cath...

I've been reading one story a month in this collection since February 2019. Reading these stories from different periods of Cather's career has really deepened my love for her writing. I'm looking forward to Phase II of the project as well as continuing in my journey of reading all of Cather's novels.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven’t read Willa Cather for almost a decade so it was a real joy to find this book and dive into these stories. Since my main knowledge of her work is inextricably linked to ideas of the American Midwest, I was surprised to find so many stories set on the east coast and in Europe.

Willa Cather writes place extremely well, and I was so excited to find a few stories set (at least partially) in Pittsburgh! Prior to reading this I had no idea she had a connection to my hometown.

Despite her obvious skill as a storyteller, many of these stories felt somewhat incomplete to me. A few hit me really hard, however, and “Old Mrs. Harris” actually made me cry. “A Wagner Matinee” was my favorite.

Overall I really enjoyed these stories - they remind me a lot of Edith Wharton’s books and I LOVE Edith Wharton. I greatly admire the ways in which Willa Cather links sadness and suffering with simple joys and pleasures. I recently read something that mentioned “the melancholy of American life” and I feel that phrase applies so aptly to Cather’s work. If you’re looking to develop a knowledge of American literature, you must read her work.

[Kristine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of short stories was very interesting and written by one of my FAVORITE authors. I have yet to read something by Willa Cather that I don't love. The 15 stories are very character-driven and many of them took place at the turn of the century. I had to take it back to the library before reading the final 3 stories, and keep meaning to check it out again. My favorite story was Flavia and her Artists and the one about the Czech immigrant.

[Penny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know, most people rate her as good-but-not-quite-great, but some of these stories are just luminous. . . .or they capture a sense of time and place so well -- Neighbor Rosicky, for example.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

These wonderful stories cover over 50 years of the author's short fiction, and settings ranging from cosmopolitan big city society to the American Great Plains.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read "My Antonia," I thought I would enjoy this collection of Willa Cather's short stories. I did enjoy some of them, but other stories in the anthology were difficult to stay involved in. Oddly, her longer short stories which were more like novellas were more enjoyable for me. She had a wonderful way of portraying a certain type of person, one not typical of mainstream Americana. Her pictures of immigrants striving to survive on the prairies are wonderful. Even reading them from another time period, the characterizations were full and the people easy to relate to. Other stories, however, did not hold my attention.

[Sherri Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Willa Cather's prose is elegant and evocative. She excels at creating settings not just in terms of their physical attributes but in terms of their mood and auras. Her characters are distinctive and sympathetic. She truly captures the sense of people and places, the thoughts and emotions, the true essense of what she is writing about.

[Albessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The troll Garden was one of my favorites in this collection!

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

cather's depiction of prairie life is dessoir's sublime

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gosh, turns out I totally hate Willa Cather. Who knew?

[Alaina · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were some real gems of short stories in here. I think it is best read by those with several decades of life experience.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

As my previous reviews have made clear I am a very big fan of the work of Willa Cather. Some of her novels are among the best works of American writing of the twentieth century.

This collection of short stories brings together all those that she chose to publish in book form. While there are numerable other short pieces of hers these were those that she chose to publish in primary form.

Not all of them work for me. The earlier writings, especially those from the initial collection " The Troll Garden " were not her best writing and the subject matter did not, in my opinion play to her natural strengths.

" Flavia and Her Artists " from this set works fairly well though it also is easy to abandon early for its flaws. A woman who fashions herself as being one who, in her small, town holds a salon of ideas of sorts becomes the subject of ridicule to many of her boarders and even community members when a celebrated artist who has stayed with her paints a very unflattering caricature of her in a widely read newspaper article. Her husband, without displaying why, upbraids him in such a way at that evenings dinner that the artist and many of the other visitors all take the road the next morning. Flavia, who has been protected from the offending article by her husband and household staff, is very disappointed with her husband. Claiming his inability to appreciate art and the artistic temperament she settles all,the blame for the disturbance on her husband. He demonstrates his love by letting the vitriol fall on him without response so as to protect his wife from the hurtful words of others.

" The Garden Lodge " is another iffy story. We meet Caroline, a strong young woman who took possession of her Father's household at a fairly young age after her Mother's death. Eventually she a man a decade or more her elder and he has brought her a level of material comfort. She is known for her serious main, no foolishness resides in her. Still she has the love of the arts. When a famous musician visits she feels a connection to him never felt before. She acts not on it but after he leaves she visits the small guest house he had stayed in to feel his presence. When her husband offers to convert that same building for a special use of hers she tells him no. In her mind she cannot let go of the space that " he " had physically occupied. She spends a terrible night of dreams until in the morning as if she has come thru a storm of potential disaster and tells her husband she would live for him to make the changes to the building. The storm of the visiting artist has passed.

From her second collection of,stories, titled " Youth and the Bright Medusa " we read a long piece called " Coming Aphrodite. " This is an excellent piece. We meet a man named Hedger, a young artist living in the city in a small, unkempt flat, in a ratty building in a busy immigrant filled neighborhood. He is happy, however, living simply and spending his time working on his craft of painting. As the story begins a young woman is moving into the apartment next to his. Before he meets her his opinion is not good, she leaves a large massive trunk in the hallway for days. Eventually, they meet, and after seeing each other out and about develop a friendship. A trip to Coney Island displays both her incredible spontaneity as well as how easy it would be to be both enthralled and frustrated by her. She is working toward becoming an actress, taking classes and training in voice and acting and all else that entails. One day she is excited to offer Hedger that she has met a well known painter who has offered to see his work, and, perhaps to feature it to help him get started. Expecting gratitude from her new love, wanting to please him, she is shocked by his diffidence if not outright hostility to the idea. He considers the man a poor painter, a hack, he is all about the art, and the truth. She sees his paintings piling up in his apartment unseen and, stung by his response, comments that what good is a great painting if no one sees it. As true as that may be he takes offense and storms off. Five days later, chagrined, after spending time in the country with a friend, he returns to apologize. She has left, he finds later just a few hours earlier for Paris. He knew it had been planned but is devastated just the same. The story shifts to decades later. The young actress, Eden Bower, is now world famous and is in town to appear in her latest play " Coming Aphrodite. " Traveling the old familiar places she inquires about her old friend, in an art shop she asks if his work ever became known. She learns that he is well known, to other painters. Not as successful commercially as he might be he still is the painter's painter and s revered by a group of young up and comings. She regrets their parting but is glad he met with the success he most valued as well.

Another piece from that collection is called " The Diamond Mine." It becomes fast evident that in this period of her writing Cather was fascinated in the interplay between the artist and his fans or those with whom he interacted. The sacrifices to relationships that might become necessary. One could wonder what she had to sacrifice. In this story we meet Cressida Garrett a quite successful singer. While not technically the best singer she is very popular, always tailoring her performance to what is desired if her. The story is narrated by a young woman who has moved In Cressida's orbit and is well familiar with her life. Cressida has been married three times. She had a tendency to love too easily and to be hurt by the general rapacity of people. Her family treated her as a leech treads a blood vessel. She has a posse of hangers on long before the terms were well known. They don't care for her. From her brother and sister to her son she is a meal ticket. All in all this is a sad story but yet we do learn a good bit about Cressida and don't envy her the success she has found as she has paid a high cost.

" A Gold Slipper " tells of a well to do businessman, one a little ego filled over his success who has found he is expected by his wife to accompany her to a new performance by a well known singer. He wishes not to go and,once forced, is doubly dissatisfied to find their seats are on the back of the stage. He scowls through the performance, embarrassed to be in exhibit so. Finally, when the show is over he sends his wife and her friend home in a carriage as s he must catch a train for a business meeting after having a drink. It is a stormy night and has his cab is departing he is accosted by a woman who ends up being the very performer he had just seems assistant. They must get to the train station and their cab has become of ill repair. Along the way she remembers him from the show, his expression, his obvious distaste. He is flustered, always confident he finds this beautiful woman who has strong opinions of her own beyond his understanding. He also finds her blushingly attractive. She invites him to visit with her in her car on the train and they have a long, argumentative discussion. Nothing untoward happens, but he will remember that evening long in his life with that scandalous actress he so disliked at the start of the evening.

The other stories in this second collection of hers featured little merit for me. That is, with the exception of Paul's Case which I had read quite some time ago. In this story Paul is a dissolute youth of a hundred years ago. Failing in school, put to work by his Father he runs from that attempt at positive influence by stealing money from his family and heading to New York City. There he lives as he feels, undeservedly, he should. Fine hotels, fine foods, fine clothes. When word comes his Father has found is location and is on the way he cannot face returning to the dullness of his former life.

The next collection featured in this composite is titled " Obscure Destinies " and begins with a wonderful story entitled " Neighbor Rosicky. " Rosicky is a hard working, fairly prosperous farmer on the plains. As the story begins he is in his Doctor's office being told that his heart is failing. If he will limit his activities, let his boys do the labor of the farm, change his diet a bit, he is told he might live quite a few more years. The Doctor especially likes this patient and thinks of his visits on the farm, the special warmth and happiness of the home. And Rosicky does listen to the Doctor, as best he can. His family is made up of several strapping sons and a young daughter who he esoecially reveres. Over the course of the story we learn about Rosicky's youth. Moving from Eastern Europe to London and finally, through his good character gaining an opportunity to move to America. Even then it took him time to get West and have what he never envisioned, land and a farm of his own. Rosicky wonders if it is the long journey, and a bit older age at which his family came, that allows him to enjoy his children more. To live more in the moment. His older son, Rudy, has married a city girl and she is struggling with the country life. Rosicky is sympathetic to her adjustment, more than journalists might expect, more than his own son. When his heart begins to fail it is his daughter in law who is within him and Polly performs in an admirable way. This is just a sweet story.

Interestingly the following story, " Old Mrs Harris " is a similar story told from the female perspective. Mrs. Harris is an elderly woman who lives with her daughter, son in law, and grandchildren. As with Rosicky her grandchildren love and adore her. She does not have the same material comforts, she has a small curtained off section of a room as her private space, and in the tradition of her home country it is the grandmother who, in such a family unit, still does much of the work of the house. A neighbor lady, a Jewish woman named Mrs Rosen visits often and though she does not understand the working arrangement of the family, indeed she thinks the youthful daughter is taking advantage of the old woman, she does respect Mrs. Harris a great deal. In both these stories we see elderly immigrants who seem to want to give their descendants a bit more frivolity in their lives than they themselves were granted, this is not an attribute often demonstrated in writing of these characters. Cather seemed to have a real ability to write the immigrant experience. Another fine, sweet story.

Two Friends in another fine story. More a demonstration of a time and place, a reading of what it might be like to have grown up in that time frame. A woman narrates the story remembering her girlhood and how she looked up to two of the leading men of the community, Misters Trueman and Dillon. Two men, very different in ways and opinions, who despite these differences had a strong friendship that had them end each day together having long discussions as the days came to an end. Discussions that the young girl often lingered around, eavesdropped, and occasionally was granted entry into. The friendship ends with the nomination of William Jennings Bryan and the total embrace of him by Dillon while Trueman considers him and his policies undeserving of embrace by an intelligent man. In a couple of these stories Cather gives us a glimpse of the thunderbolt that Bryan provoked across the plains states with his silver revolt.

The next subset of stories come from the collection " The Old Beauty and Others." The title story is another very strong entry. It opens with a mid fifties American gentlemen named Seabury visiting in France. Not in Paris but in a town of resort nature but in the years after the first war a bit downtrodden. For a day or two he spies an elderly woman in his hotel who provokes a memory he cannot place but her French name offers no stimulus to how he knows her. Eventually he does find out who she is, a famed society maven from an earlier time named Lady Longstreet. We are given a full picture of her story, her life of privilege in the late nineteenth century and how the modern world had been a hard mistress of her later years. Seabury himself had known the great lady as a quite young man in New York City and he and she rejoin their relationship. The story begins and ends with the Lady Longstreet's death but still qualifies as one that makes one both feel good, and bad, in alternating breaths.

If you have ever been one like me who wonders what it might have been like to grow up, to live in the past the story " The Best Years " will hit your heart. Set in very end of the nineteenth century the story is primarily of a young woman, a girl really, named Lesley Fergusson, living in the Plains as the eldest daughter in a very loving, close knit family. We are introduced to her by, and after meeting, Evangeline Knightly, a Superintendent of several schools in Southeast Nebraska who is making her rounds to her schools. She has a special place in heart for her youngest teacher Lesley, who we find she actually had fudged the rules to let her take her first school,at the young age of fourteen as she did so well on the exams and seemed such an upright girl. On this visit she arranges to take the homesick teacher home that Friday afternoon and return her Monday in time for class. It is out of her way but, again she loves the girl. We watch her with her family over the weekend. Her brother Hector, close to her in age and her great bosom friend. Her ten year old twin brothers and the youngest sibling a six year old boy. The closeness of this family will make you want to paint yourself into the picture. Again, Cather, paints a picture of a plains family full of love and a moderate success but also one that for one reason or another has chosen to live more in the moment and not strive for the overwhelming more, more, more, of potential greater success. I would wonder if this is from her own positive experience of a like nature or a possible rebuke of that ever striving, failure to stop and smell the roses lifestyle of the highly driven. In any case this story is very good and when the denouement of young Lesley occurs, told to us in an unexpected, almost offhanded way, it is like a gut punch. A great piece of writing.

From her last collection, the posthumously published " Five Stories " we only get two. (the others are duplicated in earlier works ) " Tom Outland's Story " is a solid story telling of two young men who working on a ranch become enchanted with a large Mesa Bluff that has many legends told of it. Eventually they explore this and find a discovery of a well preserved Indian society of cave dwellers. Both picture this discovery being hailed as a treasure and when they find the government indifferent their dissimilar reactions to it causes a break which is not reparable.

The other story, “ The Enchanted Bluff, “ featured from this collection is another of those that for certain folks will be one they would like to insert themselves into. We meet a group of young boys, ranging in age from ten to their late teens. Living in a small prairie town called Sandtown they are great friends and share days and nights in the times between chores and school. On this night they are spending one of the last fall nights camping on an island in the middle of the river that sluices through town. The boys fish, and then as the darkness settle in set up their fire and tell stories and speak of dreams of the future. Each boy is described well, each has their own dream. One boy Tip describes a mesa in New Mexico his Uncle has told him about. One that it has been found impossible to reach the summit as the sides are sheer cliff. The boys come up with a plan to later visit it and conquer it's heights, something it is known that Indians long ago did. It has to be noted that this Mesa, this geographical marking might well be the mesa described in Tom's story above. Later we learn what happened to the boys as they grow up. We are not surprised to learn they never made it to that fabled Mesa in New Mexico. I, myself, remember campfires, sleep outs with the great friends of my youth. I'm not sure we ever experience such an innocent non transactional friendship ever again in our lifetimes as we do then. Reading this story I would like one last campfire to set around with the companions of my youth.

It should be noted that I have not noted some stories in this story that failed to move me to produce comment on. These include

The Marriage of Phaedra
Scandal
A Death in the Desert
A Wagner Matinee
The Sculptor's Funeral

And

Before Breakfast.

Even so the worthy stories make up for these. Cather at her best is very special.

[August Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first foray into Willa Cather, and this collection captures stories across more than fifty years, spanning publications from 1905 to 1956. Cather was a writer sort of caught between movements, forged in the fires of Henry James realism and not quite hip to emerging modernists of her time like James Joyce and Gertrude Stein (though she admired them). In this way, her prose cut their own path, a beyond-expiration realist living in the age of the modernists. There is a sharp formalism in Cather's prose; she can astonish on the sentence level:

Toward morning, when the occasional rumbling of thunder was heard no more and the beat of the raindrops upon the orchard leaves was steadier, she fell asleep and did not waken until the first red streaks of dawn shone through the twisted boughs of the apple trees. There was a moment between world and world, when, neither asleep nor awake, she felt her dream grow thin, melting away from her, felt the warmth under her heart growing cold.

Best known for her novels of the American Midwest and frontier, the stories in this collection find Cather straddling this frontier-style work alongside stories about artists living on the East Coast and in Europe. Her early stories, in particular, deal with these struggling artist communities, seemingly before she had uncovered the American Midwest/frontier as a rich topic for her. There are standout stories, like the well-known "Paul's Case" about a teen boy struggling with his identity and sexuality, "Coming Aphrodite!" about voyeurism and romance between artists in turn-of-the-century New York, and "Tom Outland's Story" about two cattle herders who discover the hidden ruins of an ancient civilization in the New Mexican desert.

Place and identity play a central role for Cather (something oft pointed out by Cather scholars and enthusiasts). Cather's America was one of high immigration and migration, a lot of movement. Her work has a way of wrapping itself around all of this and distilling a life down to beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking, human moments. "Seabury told her how the lady was surrounded by the photographs and memoirs of her old friends; how she never travelled without them. It had struck him that she was living her life over again,—more understandingly than she lived it the first time," (p 351).

As a queer woman herself, Cather does include the occasional romance between same-sex characters, though this is usually more veiled (Cather has said she preferred writing from the male perspective, one could posit as a way to obfuscate gay relationships). She writes evocatively about European immigrants making their way in the New World and gives a human treatment to Irish and Bohemians, something that was somewhat radical for the time. Unfortunately, she didn't extend this treatment to Jewish people, who are subjected to stereotyping and insult throughout these stories, an unavoidable blemish in Cather's work.

[Kaethe Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many great sentences and stories in this collection! 2024 has been the year of Willa Cather for me.

[Frederick]

I won't give this stars because I've only read two stories by Willa Cather. But those stories were great.
One is called "Paul's Case." It's been said Paul is a precursor to Holden Caulfied. It is a story waiting for a movie adaptation. (Nobody's ever filmed CATCHER IN THE RYE, either. Salinger won't let 'em. Good for him. He's showing us the power of books. His book stands entirely on its own.)
I have forgotten the title of the other story I'm thinking of, but it involves the funeral of somebody the main character knew long before. It is written with economy and stoicism.

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any complete collection, this has its ups and down. Excellent: Coming Aphrodite, A Gold Slipper, Paul's Case, A Death in the Desert, Neighbor Rosicky, Old Mrs. Harris, Tom Outland's Story. I liked several more. Some, especially the earliest pieces, weigh things down. The Old Beauty is among the stories centered on someone the other characters find more fascinating than we are likely to.

[Christopher Newton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love Cather's Nebraska stories but can't abide her stuffy high culture middle aged stories of testy New Yotk opera singers and their ilk.

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are so fabulous.

[Randee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps my favorite book of short stories...wonderful!

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Novellas, part of Tom's book collection. She's really a magnificent writer. Learned a lot in her bio.

[mariam · Rating 5 out of 5]

heartwarming and melancholic and peaceful and wonderful

[Josephine Briggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have just finished this book. I have always admired Willa Cather's writing. I began reading her book in high school, this was assigned reading.

The book contains nineteen short stories plus her unfinished 'Avignon Story.' The book begins with her earliest stories, three of them, and named "The Troll Garden." These stories were published in 1905. Next comes eight stories, named "Youth and the Bright Medusa," from 1920; the next "Obscure Destinies" containing three stories published in 1932, published in 1948 "The Old Beauty and Others," this group contains three stories, and last "Five Stories" published in 1956 of which there are only two and also the "Unfinished Avignon Story." Ms Cather seemed to love the Great Plains, France and the southwest.

One story is 'Paul's Case,' written in Pittsburgh where she was teaching; the story is contained in many anthologies. This story is from Ms Cather's observation of youth, frustration, and wanting more from life than that which is commonplace. As so many other characters in the book, they wanted more that what life offered. There was a middle aged, heavy set business man who disliked singers and others arty people and was forced by his wife and her friend to attend a concert. This story is comical.

The stories contain characters reaching out for more in life, to be more, to get more. There are characters who admire artists and realize they can never be artists and surround themselves with those in the creative fields. One story contains a woman who opens her large, beautiful, ostentatious home to members of the art world such as poets, singers, sculptors. painters. These people were taking advantage of her and using her as a figure of fun. The story's name is 'Flavia and her Artists'. There are stories from the Great Plains, a young person from a farming family of observers admires two of the town's wealthiest men. There is another about a goodhearted, talented, singer who is used by others around her. Some stories are told by observers who tell the tales. There is a story about several young boys who promised themselves and bragged to other companions that one day they would climb a mysterious bluff. Years passed, the boys became men, however, none of did as they bragged they would do. Ms Cather wrote of the vast, strange, unknown country of the southwest, a part of the country she loves and was fascinated by.

The reader meets a myriad of people in these stories.

The story of Tom Outlander's strange town built by an ancient Indian culture eons ago that Tom happened upon. This was a marvelous, other world town, very beautiful, very sophisticated place. Strange, but the ancient Indians were intelligent, well beyond their times, but many other ancient cultures also were. Tom fell in love with the ancient culture and was angry with his best friend for selling all the artifacts they had collected. The description of the New Mexico landscape is beautiful, readers can almost visualize these places.

In these stories the reader is taken to different times and places, the Great Plains, large cities, different countries, different types of people, those who are and those who wannabe.

Good read, highly recommended.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars on the strength of three standout stories - Coming, Aphrodite!, Neighbour Rosicky & Tom Outland's Story

Also three stars on the weakness of 6 of the first 7 tales and the lifelessness of the 3 in The Old Beauty

- I one-starred all three stories in Troll Garden. Just ... bad, real bad. Been done a million times singers, painters, and socialites in NYC and Europe. Should never have been published

- I then felt like a hypocrite, because the best story in the book - Coming, Aphrodite! - is about a painter and a singer in NYC. Go figure. In any case, these two neighbors meet, interact, find some things to dislike about one another, become lovers, and then split over a misunderstanding, though life was destined to pull them in different directions. Cather really nails it here - Hedger's apartment, his Coney Island date with Eden; Eden's departure and later inquiry into how his life turned out. There's some emotional pain in seeing how little emotion she has for a man she dismissed. Really a top notch story

- After this brilliance we get three more crap stories before Cather rebounds with the solid "Paul's Case". A young man makes off with some cash before pretending to be rich in the big city, knowing all along how the trip would end

- I've already forgotten the last two stories in 'Youth and the Bright Medusa', so was happy to move to 'Obscure Destinies', where Cather starts off with the second of the three 4+ star stories in the book. I liked Rosicky's story - from Czechia to poverty as a tailor in London, to NYC and then to the prairies, with a nice life with a younger wife and their kids on a farm

- Old Mrs Harris dragged, got nothing out of it

- Two Friends ranks with Paul's case as the 4th and 5th best stories. Was neat to see William Jennings Bryan and his Cross of Gold speech mentioned in fiction

- The Old Beauty was lifeless from beginning to end, but Cather then closed with her third banger - "Tom Outland's Story". A young man protects a not quite as young man's winnings after a gambling jackpot and they become friends. As they work they decide to climb a nearby mesa in their New Mexico surroundings, and there they find history. D.C. seems as phony and greedy then as now; and the descriptions of the abandoned Native town were excellent. At the end the friends split over whether some things are worth more than money.

I cannot recommend the whole book, but there's 150 pages in here well worth your time.

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It would have been going backward. I didn't want to go back and unravel things step by step. Perhaps I was afraid I would lose the whole in the parts." - Tom Outland's Story

A shattering and beautiful collection of stories that I can hardly bring myself to 'review.' Cather is a master and these shorter expressions of that genius allow her to paint with more colors than I've seen in her novels. Honest, lyrical, incisive, honoring, powerful examinations of life - set in kitchens, schoolhouses, riversides, death beds, artist's studios, opera theaters, and penthouses.

"It was not enough; this happy, useful, well-ordered life was not enough. It did not satisfy, it was not even real." - The Garden Lodge

Special favorites include:
The Garden Lodge
A Wagner Matinée
"A Death in the Desert"
Neighbour Rosicky
Old Mrs. Harris
The Best Years
Tom Outland's Story

"She had a sudden feeling that nobody in the world, not her mother, not Rudolf, or anyone, really loved her as much as old Rosicky did. It perplexed her. She sat frowning and trying to puzzle it out. It was as if Rosicky had a special gift for loving people, something that was like an ear for music or an eye for full. It was quiet, unobtrusive; it was merely there. You saw it in his eyes,–perhaps that was why they were merry. You felt it in his hands, too." - Neighbour Rosicky

W. Cather has a special gift, the unique gift of recognizing, cultivating, and directly infusing into the reader, true love for the humblest places, people, and feelings and elevating them to heights of passion and dignity like few if any other authors can.

[Howard Jaeckel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Other than an assigned reading of “O Pioneers” in high school (which I strongly suspect I was then too young to appreciate), my first exposure to Willa Cather was a story of hers titled “Double Birthday,” anthologized in a volume of “Best American Short Stories of the Century,” as selected by John Updike. A writer so honored by Mr. Updike needs no further affirmation from me, but in fact I thought the story was one of the best two or three I had ever read.

After recently reading – and loving – “Death Comes for the Archbishop” and “My Antonia,” I decided to give “Pioneers” another try. But I first wanted more of Cather’s short fiction. I acquired this volume, and it’s a gem.

The book includes all of Cather’s stories previously collected in book form, including the oft-anthologized and justly famous “Paul’s Case.” But most memorable are a number of pieces of which the general reader is unlikely to have heard but, once read, is unlikely to forget. Although not at all plot-driven, these stories are completely absorbing until they unexpectedly conclude with a truth about life and relationships that is deeply moving. These masterpieces include “Old Mrs. Harris,” “Two Friends” and “The Best Years.” Other stories of particular note are “Coming, Aphrodite, “Neighbor Rosicky” and “The Enchanted Bluff.”

As with a collection of stories by almost any author, there were a few here that I didn’t at all like. These numbered no more than three or four, but unfortunately two of them -- “Flavia and Her Artists” and “The Marriage of Phaedra” – appear at or near the beginning of the book. Abstract and cold, they are so atypical of Cather’s work as to induce disbelief that they could have come from the pen of the same author. If you read them in the order of their presentation in “Collected Stories,” please do not be discouraged. Press on and you will be reward by stories that, when they are not singular masterpieces, are near-greats or just very good. Highly recommended.

[Blank · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unbelievably hackneyed writing from one of my favorite authors. Such a shame. Stick to her novels. You can definitely pass on her short stories. The writing is so clunky. Almost every story starts with a character's name and action in the first sentence.

*fake example*

Charles Dixon was running terribly late because the train he was on, a local coming to the city from the coast, was forced to make numerous stops, and at one stop, a woman named Margaret Barnett (from Pittsburgh) got on and sat across from him, and kept her hands in her lap while obsessively opening and closing her book.

Try reading that 19 times. Yes, it's that repetitive and bad!