The Professor's House

Willa Cather

Jan 2021 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

“An inquiry into the nature of civilization, of man’s impulse to civilize and create,” from the beloved author of O Pioneers! (The New Criterion).

After completing his masterwork and garnering a great deal of money for it, history professor Godfrey St. Paul has purchased a new house. But when the time comes to move, he cannot bring himself to do so. Sitting in his comfortable study in his current house near the shore of Lake Michigan—and on the verge of a midlife crisis—he reflects on his past.

At fifty-two, he has dedicated himself to his work, his garden, and his wife and two daughters, but despite all of his successes, he is unhappy with the course of his future. He retreats into his memories—his career and fond recollections of Tom Outland, his most outstanding student and once his son-in-law-to-be, who was lost in the Great War. He also thinks of his present and the daunting mystery of what lies ahead. And soon the introspection takes over . . .

“The Professor’s House is Cather’s masterpiece. It is almost perfectly constructed, peculiarly moving, and completely original.” —A. S. Byatt, The Guardian

About the author

Willa Cather (1873–1947) was one of the most popular and critically acclaimed American authors of the early twentieth century. Born in Virginia, she moved with her family to the frontier town of Red Cloud, Nebraska, at the age of nine, an experience that profoundly affected her literary career. Her Prairie Trilogy­­­—O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia—is considered one of the finest achievements in American letters, and in 1922 she won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, her novel on World War I.