“A WORLD IN WHICH BOTH ARTISTRY AND FEMALE IDENTIFICATION ARE POSSIBLE”: WILLA CATHER’S O PIONEERS!, FIRST EDITION

CATHER, Willa. O Pioneers! Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1913. Octavo, original ribbed tan cloth. $1200.

First edition, first printing, of the work Cather considered her first novel, one of only 2000 copies published.

"Taking its title from Whitman's epic vision of subduing the land, [O Pioneers!] is dedicated to Sarah Orne Jewett, whose Country of the Pointed Firs offers a pastoral vision of female power and of female community. In O Pioneers! Cather was finally able to envision a world in which both artistry and female identification are possible, and in this respect O Pioneers! may very well be, as she believed, her first novel" (Modern American Women Writers, 41). First printing, with Crane binding "a" in the ribbed cloth and period after "Co" on the spine touching the "o." Without very rare dust jacket. Crane A6a. Bookplate.

Interior clean, very mild soiling to cloth, a bit of rubbing and toning to spine. A very nice copy.