THE PRAIREE TRILOGY: O, Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark & My Ántonia

O Pioneers!, written in 1913, is the first novel of her Great Plains trilogy. The book tells the story of the Bergsons, a family of Swedish immigrants in the farm country at the turn of the 20th century. The main character, Alexandra Bergson, inherits the family farmland when her father dies and devotes her life to making the farm a viable enterprise at a time when many other immigrant families are giving up and leaving the prairie. The Song of the Lark, written in 1915, is generally considered to be the second novel in Cather's Prairie Trilogy. The story revolves around an ambitious young heroine, Thea Kronborg, who leaves her hometown to go to the big city to fulfill her dream of becoming a well-trained pianist. My Ántonia , published in 1918, is the final book of Cather's Prairie Trilogy. It is the story of a strong farm woman who still affirms her passion for the land after her father's suicide and desertion by her lover. Willa Sibert Cather (1873 – 1947) was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, a novel set during World War I.