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 First edition | |
| Author | Willa Cather |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | 1926 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Text | My Mortal Enemy at Wikisource |
My Mortal Enemy is the eighth novel by American author Willa Cather. It was first published in 1926. [1]
Myra and her husband Oswald return to their fictional hometown of Parthia, Illinois, to visit their relatives. Nellie and Aunt Lydia then leave to spend the Christmas holiday in New York City with them. They live on Madison Square. They dine with Ewan Gray, a friend who has an infatuation with another actress, Esther Sinclair. Oswald receives silver-buttons for his shirt from an old Western acquaintance, and asks Lydia to pretend she gave them to him to thwart his wife's jealousy. Later Myra and Nellie go to the opera; in a lodge they spot an erstwhile friend of Myra's, which makes her sad. Later they take a hansom around a park and chance upon a rich acquaintance of Myra's, which leads her to be scornful over her own poverty. They spend Christmas dinner with friends of the Henshawes - both artists and people of privilege. Later they spend New Year's Eve with artists again. A few days later Nellie witnesses the Henshawes argue; the husband takes her out to lunch. Soon after, she and her aunt are to return to Illinois. On the train, they are joined by Myra, who has argued with her husband again and is going to visit a friend in Pittsburgh for a change of scenery.
Ten years later, Nellie moved into a shabby flat in a little town on the west coast, and bumps into the Henshawes. Myra is now bedridden and Oswald works full-time; their upstairs neighbours are atrociously noisy, regardless of Myra's illness. Nellie takes to visiting her at tea-time; she also takes her out by the sea. Myra expresses her regrets over her husband. (If she had not married him, her great-uncle would have bequeathed her his fortune. Instead, she eloped and he gave it away to the church.) Oswald takes to having lunch with a young woman. Once, Nellie asks her why she is so harsh on her husband, and Myra dismisses her. Shortly after, her condition gets worse. She dismisses everyone and runs away; she is found dead by the seaside the following day. Her husband expresses no remorse about his wife; he loved her despite her difficult conduct. After her death he moves to Alaska and later Nellie hears about his death.
Cather scholar Laura Winters suggested that the novel 'represents the bitter apotheosis of the issues of exile Cather worked on all of her life'. [2]
Literary analyst Merrill Skaggs identified editor Viola Roseboro' as Cather's probable inspiration for Myra Henshawe, and posited that although Cather said the inspiration for Henshawe had died in 1911, this was a reference to Roseboro' having left McClure's Magazine (former workplace of both Roseboro' and Cather) in that year. [3]
Willa Sibert Cather was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, a novel set during World War I.
Alexander's Bridge is the first novel by American author Willa Cather. First published in 1912, it was re-released with an author's preface in 1922. It also ran as a serial in McClure's, giving Cather some free time from her work for that magazine.
A Lost Lady is a 1923 novel by American writer Willa Cather. It tells the story of Marian Forrester and her husband, Captain Daniel Forrester, who live in the Western town of Sweet Water along the Transcontinental Railroad. Throughout the story, Marian—a wealthy married socialite—is pursued by a variety of suitors and her social decline mirrors the end of the American frontier. The work had a significant influence on F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby.
Helena Modrzejewska, known professionally as Helena Modjeska, was a Polish actress who specialized in Shakespearean and tragic roles. She was successful first on the Polish stage. After emigrating to the United States, she also succeeded on stage in America and London. She is regarded as the greatest actress in the history of theatre in Poland.
In America is a 1999 novel by Susan Sontag. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. It is based on the true story of Polish actress Helena Modjeska, her arrival in California in 1876, and her ascendancy to American stardom.
My Ántonia is a novel published in 1918 by American writer Willa Cather, which is considered one of her best works.
O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by American author Willa Cather, written while she was living in New York. It was her second published novel. The title is a reference to a poem by Walt Whitman entitled "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" from Leaves of Grass (1855).
"A Wagner Matinee" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Everybody's Magazine in February 1904. In 1906, it appeared in Cather's first published collection of short stories, The Troll Garden.
"Nanette: An Aside" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Courier on 31 July 1897 and one month later in Home Monthly.
Uncle Valentine is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Woman's Home Companion in February 1925.
Double Birthday is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in The Forum in February 1929.
Ardessa is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Century in May 1918.
"Coming, Eden Bower!" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Smart Set in August 1920, and it was republished in Youth and the Bright Medusa under the title of Coming, Aphrodite, with minor alterations.
On the Gulls' Road is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in McClure's in December 1908.
"A Night at Greenway Court" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Nebraska Literary Magazine in June 1896. Four years later a revised version was published in the Library.
The Count of Crow's Nest is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in Home Monthly in October 1896.
Flavia and Her Artists is a short story by American writer Willa Cather. It was first published in The Troll Garden in 1905.
The Marriage of Phaedra is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in The Troll Garden in 1905
"The Best Years" is a short story by Willa Cather, first published after her death in the collection The Old Beauty and Others in 1948. It is her final work, and was intended as a gift to her brother, Roscoe Cather, who died as it was being written. Set in Nebraska and the northeastern United States, the story takes place over twenty years, tracing the response of Lesley Ferguesson's family to her death in a snowstorm.
Viola Roseboro' was an American literary editor. She was the fiction editor for McClure's and, later, for Collier's, in which role she discovered several important authors. Ida Tarbell called her a "born reader" and a "reader of real genius".
The full text of My Mortal Enemy at Wikisource
My Mortal Enemy public domain audiobook at LibriVox 