A Reader's Companion to the Fiction of Willa Cather

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Bloomsbury Academic, 1993 M12 30 - 880 pages
In correspondence, Willa Cather confessed to planting some of her allusions deep. This reader's companion contains thousands of lively and informative entries on persons, places, and events, fictional and real, and on quotations, works of art, and other items to reveal meanings or provide background for understanding Cather's fictional world. At the same time, it offers insights into her real world and time, her interests, and her astonishingly broad frame of reference. A lifetime project of encyclopedist John March, the once unwieldy manuscript and notes have been verified, clarified, amplified, and organized by literary scholar Marilyn Arnold, with the assistance of Debra Lynn Thornton. The goal was to develop a work that would be useful to the reader while preserving March's authorial presence has resulted in a dictionary that will both enlighten and delight.

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About the author (1993)

John March earned degrees in Chemistry and in Library Science. After teaching mathematics and chemistry, he became Assistant Librarian in Bibliographic Research at the University of Oklahoma and later became Senior Bibliographic Researcher at Collier's Encyclopedia. He began collecting Cather material in the late 1940s.

Marilyn Arnold is Professor Emeritus of English and was formerly Dean of Graduate Studies at Brigham Young University. She has published two books on Willa Cather and numerous articles on Cather and other American writers. She also lectures widely on Cather at national conferences.

Debra Lynn Thornton is a PhD candidate at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. She has written on Eudora Welty and has presented papers on Willa Cather.

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