Death Comes for the Archbishop

by Willa Cather

Overview

'Quite simply a masterpiece ... I am completely bowled over by it; by the power of its writing, by the vividness of its scene painting and by the stories it tells' A. N. Wilson

'Where there is great love there are always miracles'

Two French priests have been sent to New Mexico to reawaken the faith. There, they must contend with unforgiving landscapes, danger, rebellion and loneliness. But through their many years together they are sustained by faith, friendship and the awe-inspiring majesty that surrounds them. A work of great simplicity and sublime beauty, Willa Cather's acclaimed novel asks, what is a life well lived?

Death Comes for the Archbishop is a masterpiece by the author of O Pioneers! and the great novelist of American frontier life.

'Its whole effect works slowly and mysteriously ... a major, and rare, artistic achievement' A. S. Byatt

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780241338308
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	07/05/2018
Series:	Penguin Modern Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	999 KB

About the Author

Willa Cather was born in Virginia in 1873 and moved to Nebraska, with its wide open plains and immigrant farming communities, at the age of nine. This landscape would deeply affect her later writing. She attended university and became a journalist and teacher in Pittsburgh, and then a magazine editor in New York. Her first major novel, O Pioneers!, appeared in 1913 and was followed by two more in her prairie trilogy, The Song of the Lark and My Ántonia, as well as her masterpiece Death Comes for the Archbishop. She lived with the editor Edith Lewis for thirty-nine years until her death in 1947.

Date of Birth:

December 7, 1873

Date of Death:

April 27, 1947

Place of Birth:

Winchester, Virginia

Place of Death:

New York, New York

Education:

B.A., University of Nebraska, 1895

Table of Contents

Prologue: At Rome
Book One: The Vicar Apostolic
Book Two: Missionary Journey
Book Three: The Mass at Ácoma
Book Four: Snake Root
Book Five: Padre Martínez
Book Six: Doña Isabella
Book Seven: The Great Diocese
Book Eight: Gold under Pike’s Peak
Book Nine: Death Comes for the Archbishop

What People are Saying About This

A. S. Byatt

What intrigues me about [Cather] is the intelligence with which she combines her formidable learning in European art and literature with her 'new' uniformed or formless American subjects, the settlers and pioneers with their unrecorded lives and their diverse heritages.

Editorial Reviews

A truly remarkable book ... Soaked through and through with atmosphere ... From the riches of her imagination and sympathy Miss Cather has distilled a very rare piece of literature. It stands out, from the very resistance it opposes to classification.” —The New York Times

 "The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world as solidly as our five senses build the uiverse around us.” —Rebecca West

 “[Cather’s] descriptions of the Indian mesa towns on the rock are as beautiful, as unjudging, as lucid, as her descriptions of the Bishop’s cathedral. It is an art of ‘making,’ of clear depiction—of separate objects, whose whole effect works slowly and mysteriously in the reader, and cannot be summed up.... Cather’s composed acceptance of mystery is a major, and rare, artistic achievement.” —A. S. Byatt

From the Publisher

Pete Cross narrates Willa Cather's atmospheric classic, first published in 1927, with quiet assurance. In 1851, Father Jean Marie Latour begins his priesthood by serving as the apostolic vicar of New Mexico. As the priest from the East navigates the desert Southwest--its stunning landscape, its intensely divided peoples, and its surprising caprices--Cross brings Cather's gorgeous descriptions and the priest's inner struggles to life. In more of a reading than a performance, Cross delivers the vastness of the desert, the seething racial conflicts, contentious religious differences, and the people's humanity. Cross doesn't use accents to identify American, Native American, or Hispanic speakers, but his intelligent narration celebrates Cather's emphasis on what's most important in a person's life--living fully and honestly. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2023 - AudioFile

Pete Cross narrates Willa Cather's atmospheric classic, first published in 1927, with quiet assurance. In 1851, Father Jean Marie Latour begins his priesthood by serving as the apostolic vicar of New Mexico. As the priest from the East navigates the desert Southwest--its stunning landscape, its intensely divided peoples, and its surprising caprices--Cross brings Cather's gorgeous descriptions and the priest's inner struggles to life. In more of a reading than a performance, Cross delivers the vastness of the desert, the seething racial conflicts, contentious religious differences, and the people's humanity. Cross doesn't use accents to identify American, Native American, or Hispanic speakers, but his intelligent narration celebrates Cather's emphasis on what's most important in a person's life--living fully and honestly. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2023 - AudioFile