The story of Willa Cather is defined by a lifetime of determination, struggle, and gradual emergence. Some show their full powers early, yet Cather was the opposite-she took her time and transformed herself by stages. Through years of provincial journalism in Nebraska, brief spells of teaching, and editorial work on magazines, she persevered in pursuit of the ultimate goal-literary immortality. Unlike Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald, her idealism was unironic, and she stood alone among the great modern authors-at odds with the fashionable attitudes of her time. Benjamin Taylor uncovers the reality of Cather's artistic development, from modest beginnings to the triumphs of her mature years.