Willa Cather's A Lost Lady was first published in 1923. 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. The novel is written in the third person, but is mostly written from the perspective of Niel Herbert, a young man who grows up in Sweet Water and witnesses the decline of Mrs. Forrester, for whom he feels very deeply, and also of the West itself from the idealized age of noble pioneers to the age of ...
Read More
Willa Cather's A Lost Lady was first published in 1923. 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. The novel is written in the third person, but is mostly written from the perspective of Niel Herbert, a young man who grows up in Sweet Water and witnesses the decline of Mrs. Forrester, for whom he feels very deeply, and also of the West itself from the idealized age of noble pioneers to the age of capitalist exploitation. The novel is regarded as having a robust symbolic framework. It is also regarded as having been an influence on F. Scott Fitzgerald, as Marian Forrester was an inspiration for his Daisy Buchanan character in The Great Gatsby. The first film version of the novel was created in 1924, adapted by Dorothy Farnum. Directed by Harry Beaumont, it starred Irene Rich, Matt Moore, June Marlowe, and John Roche. It would also be adapted very loosely into a film of the same name in 1934 by Gene Markey, and starred Barbara Stanwyck as Marian Forrester. The film did not live up to the novel's reputation and is generally regarded as mediocre. (wikipedia.org)
Read Less
Written in 1923, "A Lost Lady" is a novel from Willa Cather's (1873 -- 1947) middle period of writing -- between "My Antonia" and "Death Comes to the Archbishop". This may be the least known but best portion of her output.
As does "My Antonia", "A Lost Lady" pictures the American frontier in the middle west and its closing due to urbanization, the demise of the pioneer spirit, and commercialization.
Together with its picture of the changing of the West, the book is a coming of age novel of a special sort and a portrait of a remarkable, because human and flawed, woman.
As with many of Cather's works the story is told by a male narrator, Neil Herbert.
The novel portrays Neil from adolescence as an admirer of, and perhaps infatuated by Marian Forrester, the heroine and the wife of a former railroad magnate now settled on a large farm in South Dakota. Neil matures and leaves to go to school in the East. His idea of Ms. Forrester changes as he learns that there is both more and less to her than the glittering self-assured woman that meets his young eyes.
The book is also the story of Marian herself, of her marriage, her self-assuredness, and her vulnerability. She is independent and a survivor and carries on within herself through harsh times and difficult circumstances, including the change in character of her adopted home in the mid-west.
This is a tightly written, thoughtful American novel.
Robin Friedman
bluelady
Apr 13, 2009
read the book
The book came in excellent shape for being a used book.Was very well pleased.
Love Willa Cather writtings.Good clean reading.
My cover was of a Window with a pot of flowers .
rainbow
Jul 23, 2007
wistful look back on life
a woman in old age looks back on life with wisdom, regret and compassion most moving having lived an opulent, wealthy life and then to reach old age with nothing left or to show for it
